Legal Services Sector Sheds Jobs at Highest Rate in 5 Years Forum

[JCougar]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... ctor-.html

The U.S. legal services sector shed 4,600 jobs in September, the biggest one-month drop in employment for the field in nearly five years.

The total number of legal jobs now stands at 1,133,800, a preliminary and seasonally adjusted figure, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s latest monthly report. ... The sector is down 2,900 jobs since the start of the year, dipping to its lowest point since July 2013. Employment numbers are about 46,000 jobs below pre-recession record levels set in 2007

Let's do some simple math here. There are now 1,133,800 legal jobs in the US. But this definition of legal job includes "not just lawyers but paralegals, legal consultants, process servers, notaries and patent agents, among other occupations."

With 40,000 JDs graduating each year (although it has been much higher than this in many recent years), it would take 28 years of graduates to fill all those jobs. So if the average JD graduate finishes school between 25-30, that would mean that, if 100% of legal sector jobs are JD jobs, to guarantee all JDs eventual jobs in the legal market, your average lawyer would have to retire between ages 53 and 58.

But 1) most lawyers I know do not retire this early. A lot work well into their 60s, and even into their 70s; and 2) that total number of jobs includes an unknown percentage of paralegals, secretaries, and process servers, almost all of which are not JDs. If we could figure out exact estimates of #1 and #2, it would be fairly easy to ballpark a long-term figure for the percentage of JD grads that actually have a legal career ahead of them.

Anyhow, this should be a warning to anyone who thinks the law job market is turning the corner...

[Wingtip88]

As long as law school enrollment continues its rapid decline, and hopefully it does, things will eventually look better than they do now for graduates. But clearly, just because you can get a lawyer job out of law school, doesn't mean you're going to be able to keep it for a meaningful amount of time.

Law school should continue to be viewed with intense skepticism by anybody considering a law career.

[twenty]

Doesn't this also assume that people that go into law will permanently stay in law? The attrition rate is pretty high in this profession, if I remember correctly.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Even in the heyday, many people decided between 0-5 years out of law school that they didnt want to practice. I would guess the figure is at least 20% of law grads have decided that they don't want to practice by year 5 for a variety of reasons (hate the law, QOL, retire to have kids, etc etc).

[Desert Fox]

Hopefully it was entirely legal secretaries.

[JCougar]

Even in the heyday, many people decided between 0-5 years out of law school that they didnt want to practice. I would guess the figure is at least 20% of law grads have decided that they don't want to practice by year 5 for a variety of reasons (hate the law, QOL, retire to have kids, etc etc).

In the heyday, people weren't carrying $200-300K debt burdens that made it difficult to do anything other than law. I wonder how much that's going to affect voluntary attrition. Even 5 years of Biglaw will not pay off that much debt.

As for the rest, if you don't get a job from OCI, no matter how highly-ranked your school, it's a real-life version of Career Hunger Games (sponsored by LinkedIn!), trying scrape together any combination of shitlaw and PI/government volunteering--positions that either pay you nothing or not nearly enough to even make interest payments on your loans, positions that are either short-term by definition or that are effectively short-term (shitlaw is constantly firing people, laying them off because "there's no budget anymore because we lost a major case," etc.). I suspect that a lot of these people leave the profession between 0-5 years when they realize that it doesn't get any better from there, less a few entrepreneurial-minded lawyers that can succeed by starting their own practice.

It's hard to figure out what these people do when leaving the law is not voluntary for them, they have hardly paid off any of their six-figure debt (or worse, have let interest accrue for 2-3 years and now owe tons more), and they are forced out due to lack of legitimate jobs.

[JCougar]

As long as law school enrollment continues its rapid decline, and hopefully it does, things will eventually look better than they do now for graduates. But clearly, just because you can get a lawyer job out of law school, doesn't mean you're going to be able to keep it for a meaningful amount of time.

Law school should continue to be viewed with intense skepticism by anybody considering a law career.

I still think the graduating class needs to dip into the 20-29K range for this to make a huge difference. This won't happen until at least 50 bottom-feeding law schools close completely, and the rest of the schools continue tightening up class sizes. There's already around 30 or so ABA approved ones that have pretty close to open enrollment practices that will have trouble getting anyone to pass the bar 2-3 years down the line. It's too bad the ABA thinks it's a good idea to let those schools waste everyone's money and time in the meantime.

[Tiago Splitter]

I still think the graduating class needs to dip into the 20-29K range for this to make a huge difference. This won't happen until at least 50 bottom-feeding law schools close completely, and the rest of the schools continue tightening up class sizes.

No one would be shocked if the class of 2018 ends up with fewer than 30k grads. We can do 20-29k without anybody closing down.

[JCougar]

No one would be shocked if the class of 2018 ends up with fewer than 30k grads. We can do 20-29k without anybody closing down.

If that happens, I'm pretty sure a few dozen schools will close down anyway. There's probably enough schools doing everything they can just to tread water right now (and wait out the hard times) that simply staying where we're at for another 2-3 years instead of rebounding will force them to close their doors, or convince their parent universities that there's no reason to keep propping them up.

I honestly think Cooley's other campuses are in big trouble. Thomas Jefferson could close before this school year is over. Charleston and a few for-profit schools in CA and FL are in big trouble as well. We might even see some Tier 3 schools attached to larger private universities fold just because the university wants to save money.

[JCougar]

In unrelated news, LOL @ the number of unpaid T6 grads I've been working with lately. They all have the same story: "I wish I would have bid on NYC."

[PDaddy]

No one would be shocked if the class of 2018 ends up with fewer than 30k grads. We can do 20-29k without anybody closing down.

If that happens, I'm pretty sure a few dozen schools will close down anyway. There's probably enough schools doing everything they can just to tread water right now (and wait out the hard times) that simply staying where we're at for another 2-3 years instead of rebounding will force them to close their doors, or convince their parent universities that there's no reason to keep propping them up.

I honestly think Cooley's other campuses are in big trouble. Thomas Jefferson could close before this school year is over. Charleston and a few for-profit schools in CA and FL are in big trouble as well. We might even see some Tier 3 schools attached to larger private universities fold just because the university wants to save money.

Some closures need to happen! You are also going to see a few mergers and acquisitions. We've had some nice threads discussing 50-100 schools we would like to see close and 20-25 we would like to se open. Go read the threads, they are pretty interesting.

If we can close out five "UDC Laws" and open one new "Johns Hopkins Law" in their place, legal education and the law profession will be much better for it.

[Johann]

I would love to see the other types of decisions those people make who choose law over other viable career paths.

[JCougar]

How long before the October LSAT numbers come out? June was down 9.1%.

There was a lot of scuttlebutt over the February numbers being up 1.1% (faculty lounge was all but declaring the end of the decline), but I think that was mostly due to law schools pushing their application deadlines back until the summer (or just getting rid of them completely), and therefore making the February LSAT a more reasonable option for a lot of people. October is the biggest test day, so it will tell us a lot.

[bl1nds1ght]

How long before the October LSAT numbers come out? June was down 9.1%.

There was a lot of scuttlebutt over the February numbers being up 1.1% (faculty lounge was all but declaring the end of the decline), but I think that was mostly due to law schools pushing their application deadlines back until the summer (or just getting rid of them completely), and therefore making the February LSAT a more reasonable option for a lot of people. October is the biggest test day, so it will tell us a lot.

I can't wait for the new data and obviously the faculty lounge was premature in their estimation. Without having seen the June numbers for this year, I was personally estimating that there may be one or two more years of declining LSAT administrations, but the 9% drop in June surprised me. If this last September is just as large of a drop as the previous year's, then there may be more solid declines ahead.

I thought Spivey had heard somewhere that the decline in registration alone was something like 6-8%, so with cancellations and withdraws, the number may be higher. I don't know.

[JCougar]

I think Elie Mystal nailed it when he said: "Law schools have created an army of people who tell other people not to go to law school."

I think it's this, more than just a media phenomenon, more than Campos/Tamanaha publishing their books and the articles in the New York Times, etc. The bottom line is that there's hundreds of thousands of JD graduates from 2008 to 2014 screaming "don't go to law school" to anyone they know that is thinking about it. And there's probably tens of thousands of people from 2000-2008 that got "Lathamed" even though they did everything right saying the same thing.

Even if the present employment stats level out, there will still be an entire generation of JD grads out there with a ruined future reminding people not to go, because once you're laid off or unemployed in this profession, you're as good as dead.

[bl1nds1ght]

I think Elie Mystal nailed it when he said: "Law schools have created an army of people who tell other people not to go to law school."

I honestly don't where I'd be if a couple people on reddit hadn't persuaded me to get a job before LS and to research on LST and TLS. Very, very happy that I listened to them.

[FSK]

I think Elie Mystal nailed it when he said: "Law schools have created an army of people who tell other people not to go to law school."

I honestly don't where I'd be if a couple people on reddit hadn't persuaded me to get a job before LS and to research on LST and TLS. Very, very happy that I listened to them.

I'm super active on /r/lawschool. Good to hear!

[bl1nds1ght]

I think Elie Mystal nailed it when he said: "Law schools have created an army of people who tell other people not to go to law school."

I honestly don't where I'd be if a couple people on reddit hadn't persuaded me to get a job before LS and to research on LST and TLS. Very, very happy that I listened to them.

I'm super active on /r/lawschool. Good to hear!

Ha, I recognize your name. So am I.

I'm not on /r/lawschool as much these days, mostly on /r/lawschooladmissions and /r/LSAT (because that's where more of the people who need help show up). I created /r/lawschoolstats for quick employment referencing for all the LST info.

I received that advice in late 2012 early 2013 after reading some disparaging comments about LS in different places. Then I went to /r/lawschool to check it out and it changed my life, haha.

It's good to run into you here. Not many people use both reddit and TLS that I know of. Attax is one.

[twenty]

Bye Cooley, Ann Arbor.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/10/08/coo ... or-campus/

[Winston1984]

Bye Cooley, Ann Arbor.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/10/08/coo ... or-campus/

Can UMich now claim the title as best school in AA?

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Even in the heyday, many people decided between 0-5 years out of law school that they didnt want to practice. I would guess the figure is at least 20% of law grads have decided that they don't want to practice by year 5 for a variety of reasons (hate the law, QOL, retire to have kids, etc etc).

In the heyday, people weren't carrying $200-300K debt burdens that made it difficult to do anything other than law. I wonder how much that's going to affect voluntary attrition. Even 5 years of Biglaw will not pay off that much debt.

As for the rest, if you don't get a job from OCI, no matter how highly-ranked your school, it's a real-life version of Career Hunger Games (sponsored by LinkedIn!), trying scrape together any combination of shitlaw and PI/government volunteering--positions that either pay you nothing or not nearly enough to even make interest payments on your loans, positions that are either short-term by definition or that are effectively short-term (shitlaw is constantly firing people, laying them off because "there's no budget anymore because we lost a major case," etc.). I suspect that a lot of these people leave the profession between 0-5 years when they realize that it doesn't get any better from there, less a few entrepreneurial-minded lawyers that can succeed by starting their own practice.

It's hard to figure out what these people do when leaving the law is not voluntary for them, they have hardly paid off any of their six-figure debt (or worse, have let interest accrue for 2-3 years and now owe tons more), and they are forced out due to lack of legitimate jobs.

I agree and think that anyone who after law school will have $200k+ should not attend law school except maybe HYS depending on the circumstances. The debt is the killer about law school.

[JCougar]

I think that's the key. The ABA has to get rid of either the debt or the glut of JDs. You can't have both.

In the 1960s, it was fine, because even if half of the students flunked out, they weren't debt-pwned for the rest of their life, and they could lateral easily to another career with at least a fundamental understanding of law. And of course schools actually flunked out students back then, because there wasn't a cutthroat competition for tuition money, so there was no need to string along people who obviously weren't getting law jobs for another 2 years. I'm fine with this, because not everyone who enters law school is cut out for law, and admission to law school in no way should entitle you to a job as a lawyer. But people don't find this out until after they've paid at least 1L tuition, and by then, most people are already screwed by debt and lured in by sunk cost reasoning or pressured to finish and "stick it out" by friends and family.

It's either that, or go the medical school route. Tuition is ridiculous, but everyone gets a job because admissions criteria are more strict and labor supply is limited.

I'm fine with either one. I actually prefer the former option. But you can't have both debt-screwed and oversupply at the same time. If you do, it's outright larceny, and the people responsible for regulating this should go to jail.

[JCougar]

How long before the October LSAT numbers come out? June was down 9.1%.

There was a lot of scuttlebutt over the February numbers being up 1.1% (faculty lounge was all but declaring the end of the decline), but I think that was mostly due to law schools pushing their application deadlines back until the summer (or just getting rid of them completely), and therefore making the February LSAT a more reasonable option for a lot of people. October is the biggest test day, so it will tell us a lot.

Well, they're out.

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... ministered

Lowest September/October numbers ever recorded.

You have to really wonder about the elasticity of this market. Employment for law grads really hasn't started improving in any measurable way yet, but even when it does, how many years will it take for the positive news to change people's mindset? It takes a while for information like this to filter through the general population without a mass media advertising campaign. It's taken 6 years of bad legal employment news to get down to where we're at right now. The "law school is a path to success" bubble has been popped except for the most low-information corners of society, and even if things get better next year, it might take another 5 years for public perception to bounce back.

I have a feeling I'll get my wish of ~50 law schools closing. Unfortunately, the ABA's going to do it the hard, wasteful way, and let schools with no hope of surviving long-term continue to indebt new throngs of students that will probably never pass the bar and may not even graduate due to the school closing down before they can. Of course, it's the taxpayers that will be footed with the bill for all of this. I'm not one for austerity, but this seems like a particularly immoral, unethical path to follow. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to get to my ABA Ethics course to cover my CLE credits...

[dixiecupdrinking]

On the flip side, if you are gonna go to law school, applying with presumably one of the smallest applicant classes in memory is not a bad time to do it.

[JCougar]

On the flip side, if you are gonna go to law school, applying with presumably one of the smallest applicant classes in memory is not a bad time to do it.

As long as you get significant scholarship money. Because even when the entry level supply/demand goes back to normal, law school will still have basically doubled in sticker price since the last time law school was a prudent idea from a jobs perspective alone.