RECESSION PANIC MEGAPOST: Bad economy threads go here! Forum

[Mark71121]

ITE, if you do something other than t6 or a t14 with significant scholarship money, you are making a very scary decision.

[PrudenceNeverLied]

All right, I've been thinking about this and it's really not that bad. So relax. Enjoy this wonderful time in your life and look forward to great things. That is all.

[pleasetryagain]

All right, I've been thinking about this and it's really not that bad. So relax. Enjoy this wonderful time in your life and look forward to great things. That is all.

someone hack your account?

[Dead Ringer]

edit: it's not worth posting in this thread.

[brooklynpatriot1]

Law school still remains a strong option so long as your going to make the most of it and work hard. The job market is going to be significantly different four years from now. Even if thigns never don't return to the way they were, it will be significantly better. If you have a marketable skill that doesn't require 100 K in loan then go for it, but for the rest of us, law school is still the way to go.

[Blindmelon]

Law school still remains a strong option so long as your going to make the most of it and work hard. The job market is going to be significantly different four years from now. Even if thigns never don't return to the way they were, it will be significantly better. If you have a marketable skill that doesn't require 100 K in loan then go for it, but for the rest of us, law school is still the way to go.

Most UG degrees are marketable if you know how to market them. I was a Poly Sci major and started in business making 50k a year. I'm sick of people saying they're going to LS because they went to a liberal arts schools. They are just lazy.... but not because LS isn't exactly easy.

[PrudenceNeverLied]

All right, I've been thinking about this and it's really not that bad. So relax. Enjoy this wonderful time in your life and look forward to great things. That is all.

someone hack your account?

Nah, I was talking to this homeless dude and he explained everything.

[singularity]

Law school still remains a strong option so long as your going to make the most of it and work hard. The job market is going to be significantly different four years from now. Even if thigns never don't return to the way they were, it will be significantly better. If you have a marketable skill that doesn't require 100 K in loan then go for it, but for the rest of us, law school is still the way to go.

Most UG degrees are marketable if you know how to market them. I was a Poly Sci major and started in business making 50k a year. I'm sick of people saying they're going to LS because they went to a liberal arts schools. They are just lazy.... but not because LS isn't exactly easy.

Liberal arts majors need to know their limits like this->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w&feature=fvw

[drew]

The bolded part explains why the economy has zero chance of recovering and why we are where we are: 2/3 of the economy is consumer spending - how the F*$@% does increased production do anything to help that? Answer - it doesn't. Everyone is looking at the supply side/business side - if businesses start doing better, making more supply, or making it more efficiently, that's supposed to be good - Bull S%&$&. An increase in personal earnings, that is what affects an economy that is 2/3 consumer spending.

Yes, the growth has been captured by fewer and fewer. And everyone is still so busy looking at, "What is productivity doing," "What is GDP" that no one is even thinking to address this, the central issue of this downturn. So onward toward collapse we continue...

Since our last Yale president didn't get it, and our current Harvard one doesn't, maybe we need a Cooley president to pull us out of this...

You can't think of any way that increased productivity and businesses doing better might help increase consumer spending? I can: jobs.

You're right, economists look at "What is productivity doing," "What is GDP doing," and another measure that you conveniently left out, and just happens to be the absolute favorite measure: "What is unemployment doing?"

Unemployment doesn't mean much as it's read - since Clinton stopped counting LT Unemp, and since someone working PT for Manpower as at temp isn't counted - Manpower has frequently been the #1 employer in the nation. What needs to be measured is household income/expenses, household debt/savings. Productivity does not = jobs. Often an increase in productivity means the opposite - more production from fewer man hours ie less jobs.

I know the lie that increased supply side numbers = jobs has been echoed unchecked for a generation, but it doesn't make it true. Increased production #'s thanks to labor in China/lower pay for Americans/more work from fewer employees is the disaster that we face. We need Americans to get paid. They are not. So we collapse.

Really? Manpower over the federal government and Walmart? You sure, man?

[joebruin2.0]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahah to all you new 1L kids who decided to go to law school with eyes wide open to the prospect of actually getting a job. I feel no pity for you! Enjoy a lifetime of crushing debt and little/no job prospects.

I've already seen the beads of sweat begin to form on the 1Ls at my school... now that reality has set in and their new "Law School" t-shirt has lost the fresh from the store smell.

[scott82]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahah to all you new 1L kids who decided to go to law school with eyes wide open to the prospect of actually getting a job. I feel no pity for you! Enjoy a lifetime of crushing debt and little/no job prospects.

I've already seen the beads of sweat begin to form on the 1Ls at my school... now that reality has set in and their new "Law School" t-shirt has lost the fresh from the store smell.

Better to be a 1L than a 3L right now. How are your job prospects?

[CE2JD]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahah to all you new 1L kids who decided to go to law school with eyes wide open to the prospect of actually getting a job. I feel no pity for you! Enjoy a lifetime of crushing debt and little/no job prospects.

I've already seen the beads of sweat begin to form on the 1Ls at my school... now that reality has set in and their new "Law School" t-shirt has lost the fresh from the store smell.

FML

[joebruin2.0]

I am one of the lucky ones with a low 6 figure job... but many, many others are hosed beyond all measure of hose measuring.

[scott82]

I think there must be more to it than luck.

[laidoffjournalist]

Harvard, NYU Law Students Left Hanging as Firms Slash Offers

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... Cjq2MsxrnQ

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Many students entering their final year at top law schools including Harvard and New York University haven’t landed the full-time jobs they would normally have claimed by now, firms and school officials said, a reflection of the shrinking demand for legal services.

The stark reality of the legal marketplace was illustrated by yesterday’s 2010 job offers by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the highest-grossing U.S. law firm. It projected a 50 percent cut in summer hiring, said Howard Ellin, the recruiting partner for Skadden. The firm hired 225 students this summer and plans to hire less than half that for summer 2010.

The number of first-round interviews for second- and third- year Harvard Law School students fell 20 percent this year, Mark Weber, assistant dean for career services, wrote in an e-mail, adding that it’s too early to predict how many will get second interviews. At NYU, interviews plunged this school year compared with last, with callbacks for second interviews dropping “dramatically,” said Irene Dorzback, dean of career services.

“When I was at NYU 10 years ago, top-performing students got an average of 25 callbacks,” Jonathan Cole, a senior associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, said in an interview last week on the Greenwich Village campus. “Today, they’re lucky if they get 10.” When it comes to getting a job, he said, “no one is taking anything for granted.”

Traditionally Hire

A law degree typically takes three years to obtain. Law firms traditionally hire students for summer internships after their second year of school, then offer them jobs beginning after graduation the following year. Large U.S. firms are delaying start dates for 2009 and 2010 graduates, and hiring fewer students for next summer and beyond.

The job crunch is likely to affect the class of 2011 as well, said James Leipold, executive director of the Association for Legal Career Professionals.

“We expect to see more students taking non-legal jobs in industry,” Leipold said in an interview. “We expect to see more students taking jobs at small and medium-sized law firms or launching solo practices right out of law school.”

The collapse last year of San Francisco-based Thelen and Heller Ehrman LLP, as well as New York-based Thacher Proffitt & Wood, is contributing to the drop in recruiting, Dorzback said.

In July, San Francisco-based Orrick and Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP canceled plans to hire law students next summer, citing diminished demand for legal services.

DLA Piper LLP, the 11th-highest-grossing U.S. law firm, is deferring full-time start dates of first-year associates, originally scheduled for this fall, until January.

Year’s Wait

This summer’s interns who are offered jobs won’t start for at least a year, in January 2011 or January 2012, according to an internal memo at the firm.

When Dorzback learned about the canceled summer programs, she invited Orrick and others to offer job-seeking help to the school’s 500 potential 2010 graduates.

Orrick’s Cole said last week that he was busy all day conducting one-on-one mock interviews and career sessions.

“These are top students at a top school,” said Cole, of Orrick’s project finance group in New York. “They all have callbacks, but no one is swimming in offers.”

While bigger firms are cutting back, some smaller firms haven’t reined in their recruiting. Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP, a New York firm with more than 300 attorneys, made offers to all 16 student associates this summer and asked them to start full-time next September, said Aaron Marks, a partner.

Highest Revenue

Kasowitz Benson, which specializes in complex litigation, reached its highest revenue ever in 2008 and expects 2009 revenue to be the same, managing partner and founder Marc Kasowitz said in an interview.

“It feels wonderful” to have a job lined up, Lucienne Pierre, a Kasowitz hire in her third and last year at Cornell University Law School, wrote in an e-mail.

At Cornell, in Ithaca, New York, many third-year students’ plans remain up in the air, according to Pierre. They either didn’t receive job offers from the firms where they worked over the summer, the firms haven’t made offers or the offers came with deferred start dates. As a result, she said, many are looking for clerkships and public-interest jobs.

Leo Rakitin, a second-year law student at NYU, is still looking for a summer job for next year.

“I’m keeping an open mind,” Rakitin said last week when he showed up for a practice interview with Cole.

110-Lawyer Firm

Rakitin worked this summer at Davis & Gilbert LLP, a 110- attorney New York firm that represents clients in marketing, advertising and media. The firm’s summer class consists of about two-thirds first-year law students and one-third second-year students. It makes full-time job offers to the latter at the end of the summer, and asks its first-year students to work elsewhere after their second year, said Michael Lasky, litigation co-chairman at Davis & Gilbert.

“We have not had to cut back on our summer program or our on-campus interviews,” Lasky said in an interview. “If you are strategically focused, you can do a lot of good things and prove yourself to be recession-immune.”

So everyone please cancel your LSAT and go into a different field. I'd like to get into a good law school for next year.

[PrudenceNeverLied]

Yep. Everyone give up now. If you are not currently in law school, just don't do it. Be a chef or train conductor.

[laidoffjournalist]

Both wear cool hats. Lawyers do not. We agree.

[CE2JD]

Proof that everyone going to law school paying full freight is retarded: --LinkRemoved--

[rayiner]

Proof that everyone going to law school paying full freight is retarded: --LinkRemoved--

Dammit CE! You got me to read the ATL comments, which cost me valuable IQ points I need for Civ Pro!

[Blindmelon]

Proof that everyone going to law school paying full freight is retarded: --LinkRemoved--

And this is why I'm targeting non-legal work. I want to be a lawyer, but seriously, screw that. Time to treat the JD like I just got a 3 year masters and jump back into consulting. Soooo glad I worked 2 years before doing this.

[laidoffjournalist]

The economy should be better by 2013 though, right? On the reals, going to law school can't be a bigger mistake than getting a degree in journalism, can it? I worked at a daily paper, making less than $20,000 a year while living at home. I got laid off and I still live with my mom. I've applied to newspapers around the country I thought I was well qualified for and didn't even get a callback let alone a job offer. Most people I know in newspapers are getting wage freezes and unpaid furloughs if they aren't losing their jobs. If you're not expecting a six-figure Big Law job, there's hope you'll earn a decent living after law school, right? I think newspapers have no hope, basically. And I could desperately try to wedge my foot into public relations, but so are all the other laid off journalists. Rather than throw this journalism degree at the wall hoping it will stick on some sort of job, I'd rather start a new career path. I'd like a high earning potential doing something I want to do. Desperately finding some place that will take a 2007 journalism degree graduate seems worse than the risk of taking out more loans for law school. Thoughts?

[Nom Sawyer]

The economy should be better by 2013 though, right? On the reals, going to law school can't be a bigger mistake than getting a degree in journalism, can it? I worked at a daily paper, making less than $20,000 a year while living at home. I got laid off and I still live with my mom. I've applied to newspapers around the country I thought I was well qualified for and didn't even get a callback let alone a job offer. Most people I know in newspapers are getting wage freezes and unpaid furloughs if they aren't losing their jobs. If you're not expecting a six-figure Big Law job, there's hope you'll earn a decent living after law school, right? I think newspapers have no hope, basically. And I could desperately try to wedge my foot into public relations, but so are all the other laid off journalists. Rather than throw this journalism degree at the wall hoping it will stick on some sort of job, I'd rather start a new career path. I'd like a high earning potential doing something I want to do. Desperately finding some place that will take a 2007 journalism degree graduate seems worse than the risk of taking out more loans for law school. Thoughts?

Definitely, Journalism is the one field that roundly trumps out Law & basically any other job for shrinking employment options. Journalism isn't just suffering from a bad economy, it's entire business model is disappearing as the plethora of free, convenient online news along with crumbling budgets for advertising (which also focus more on TV/internet now) remove the chance for profitability even in regular times...

[laidoffjournalist]

So in comparison, anything would be better, yes. But can law be as bad as people say? I realize Big Law is disappearing, just like the culture of Wall Street is (or should) be going through a similar change. But what if you just want a normal job as a lawyer? I'm not looking to be making six figures at a top Manhattan law firm. I just want to make a decent living somewhere nice in the northeast. Am I expecting too much?

[singularity]

just like the culture of Wall Street is (or should) be going through a similar change.

Change?


"But Wall Street, helped by improving profits, is on track to pay employees as much as, or even more than, it did in the pre-crisis days. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... eheadlines

[solo_lawyer]

--LinkRemoved--