RECESSION PANIC MEGAPOST: Bad economy threads go here! Forum

[rayiner]

http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2008-2009/Lega ... istics.pdf

Since 1983, the US population has grown by 29%, while the number of JD's awarded each year has only grown by 20%. In fact, between 1983 and 2005, the number of JD's awarded each year only grew by 10%, while population grew by 27%. The number of ABA-accredited law schools only grew by 14%. For those panicky about next cycle, it's interesting to note that there is no particularly discernible trend in number of applicants. Last year the number of applicants was the same as in 1995, and the peak of ~100k was hit in 1991/1992 was well as 2004/2005.

[stateofbeasley]

If you want to be a lawyer, by all means, go to law school. Just make sure your debt burden is one you can manage if you graduate as an average student.

A lot of people go to law school by default (the stereotypical political science major, etc) because they want money. These are the people who end up mired in debt and in a profession that they just don't like.

Really? Do the intentions of someone entering law school greatly impact the amount of debt they have, and their starting salary after they graduate? Or is your support based entirely on the just-world phenomenon?

The intentions matter a lot. Not for amount of debt, but for being able to be a lawyer.

A person who is motivated to enter law school by a desire to be a lawyer will generally have more self-motivation. Even if they do poorly in law school, these are the people who will beg, borrow, steal, and do almost anything to get a job. These are entrepreneurial people who want to build their own practice someday.

The people who entered law school adrift are mostly still adrift. Some are doing well in government or as document reviewers. Others are unemployed.

[stateofbeasley]

Nor will the recession fundamentally alter the way corporations spend money. Their penny-pinching ways will subside as the economy improves.

My view is that efficiencies that companies find during downtimes are efficiencies that they are likely to keep in the future. The "jobless recovery" from the 2001 recession is one example. Workers who were dead weight on the company were generally not rehired.

If a company can reduce its legal costs, that is more money that can be put towards capital improvements, R&D, marketing, and other items that improve the core business.

Betting that companies will start throwing money around again is IMO not a good bet. The people who run these companies are not going to forget this economic disaster anytime soon.

[IvanDrago]

http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2008-2009/Lega ... istics.pdf

For those panicky about next cycle, it's interesting to note that there is no particularly discernible trend in number of applicants. Last year the number of applicants was the same as in 1995, and the peak of ~100k was hit in 1991/1992 was well as 2004/2005.

Recent information from different sources indicates that law school applications to most schools are declining while significantly increasing at the very top schools. This explains why admissions at the top law schools are the most competitive in history when the total number of applications is not at its peak.

[stateofbeasley]

I saw the thread about this article: --LinkRemoved--

A lot of people were ripping on this guy for his personality and making all kinds of judgments.

I think people need to be careful about that.

(1) Some people have blamed him for skipping around jobs, often leaving after 2 to 2 and a half years. This is common.
I know more than a few people who stayed 2 years at a job, be it the Philly DA, Small firm, or Philly Biglaw, and decided to lateral elsewhere. Some DA's go to small/mid firms to make more money. Some Biglaw downsize to midlaw run by former biglaw because they can't take biglaw stress anymore. Some biglaw attorneys hop to other biglaw firms.

Job hopping is the norm, not the exception. Even my professors at Temple acknowledged this when talking about the state of the "profession" today.

(2) If he truly sucked so much, and was a PITA, he wouldn't have gotten two more law firm jobs after his first job. Especially with small firms, law is a very personal business. He would have gotten damned with faint praise with references from his first jobs. It would not have been hard for firms to find someone else more amenable, especially considering how crowded the field is.

(3) Some people called him "whiny" and an "idiot". But the fact of the matter is that he's not sitting on his ass. He has six years of litigation experience and is starting his own practice. That's a lot more legal street credibility than ANY of the 0Ls here have.

Now I don't know this guy, and his choice to ring up six figure debt at Villanova was not a financially smart move, but he doesn't deserve these kinds of attacks.

It's time that some of the people here face reality. This is a tough business. Heaping scorn on those who fall on hard times and saying "oh it won't happen to me" is not productive.

[badlydrawn]

Agreed.

[Jay Phatsby]

good advice

[Rsrcht]

--LinkRemoved--

Lawyers are getting older.

[soullesswonder]

Some news today. First, a Slate magazine feature on twenty-somethings and the economy - it drives home the point that people are suffering at all levels (engineering Ph.Ds, high school graduates, and everyone in between). This excerpt should give TLS a little hope:

Economists would dispute this. "When things recover, it's going to be the highly skilled who are still in greatest demand (as has been true for the last three decades)," says David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "So, for someone considering engineering, medicine, computer science, economics, law, biology, etc., I would say 'go.' " Autor says the only question mark is whether Gordon's degree, the MBA, will retain its previous value given the financial crash. For everyone else, "The recession makes education look like a better deal than ever because the opportunity cost of investing in your human capital has not been this low in quite some time."

Gordon might counter, yeah, but it sure feels rotten now, and who really knows when and how this downturn will end? It's the grim short term and the uncertain longer term that is grinding graduates down, I think, even if in statistical terms, they should be fine.

I also heard from law school graduates with $200,000 in debt who wonder what they were thinking as firms downsize and implode. "It is a nightmare," writes Benjamin, who got laid off a few weeks ago without a day's notice. He has moved back in with his parents—until he leaves to go teach English in Korea. "The pay is decent and the expenses are covered. I highly recommend other college graduates who are in my position look into this. But, my God, I have to leave the United States of America. What in the world happened?" (Autor would tell him to relax: "As for the law degree being underwater: Lawyers may get their shoes wet during the recession, but high school grads can't even see the surface they are so far down.")

Full article: http://www.slate.com/id/2215830/

Also, an article in the NYTimes about a Skadden associate's plan to use her year off (with 80k compensation)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyreg ... den&st=cse
(you may need to register to view the page)

[bear market]

Also, an article in the NYTimes about a Skadden associate's plan to use her year off (with 80k compensation)



Yes, but what if you never get that Skadden (or other Biglaw job) in the first place? What will you do with the debt load? Small firms sure as hell aren't hiring anybody. "Midlaw" will have their choice of experienced Biglaw refugees and isn't likely to do much hiring either. Governments are putting on hiring freezes as deficits sprial out of control.

Remember kids, OCI is a short 16 months away, not "three years" as many here assume. If you emerge jobless from OCI, you are in some really deep trouble. And anyone even entertaining the idea of a non-Top 14 school in this economy is clinically insane.

[bear market]

Bad news even in backwater states like Georgia, etc. This is from today's NYLJ. Of course, the usual suspects here will call it "anectdotal," along with yesterdays front page Philly Inquirer story, the past 6 months of ATL postings, all of JDU, WSJ blog, etc. Just keep deluding yourselves lemmings. :


ATLANTA - The number of law firm personnel who filed for unemployment benefits last month statewide roughly doubled from March 2008, rising from 129 to 266, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. Of the 266 firm employees, 63 were lawyers and 203 were staff. For the first quarter of this year, the number of firm lawyers and staff filing unemployment claims increased 73.4 percent from the first quarter of 2008.

March unemployment filings increased 16 percent from February.
Even though the rate of law firm layoffs for staff and lawyers escalated sharply in January, both nationally and locally, unemployment claims for law firm personnel are still a tiny fraction of statewide claims. The state's 266 law firm employees filing for unemployment in March made up only about 0.3 percent of the 93,306 total claims.

But the Labor Department figures show only the tip of the legal unemployment iceberg. The statistics for legal workers are for law firms only, not lawyers and staff in government or corporate law departments. Those workers are categorized as government workers or in their company's industry area.

Second, the figures track only law firm personnel who are covered by their firm's unemployment insurance—generally salaried workers and not partners. Partners, who are self-employed, are far less likely to pay for unemployment insurance, since the top weekly payout in Georgia for unemployment benefits is $330—a fraction of most partners' income.

Finally, the current number of laid-off associates is not captured by the Department of Labor statistics, since workers are not eligible for unemployment benefits until their severance pay runs out. Associates laid off from large firms have received far more generous severance packages than those in most other industries.

Atlanta's biggest firms have paid associates up to three months of severance. The idea is that the associate will use the three months to find another job or hang out his or her own shingle—and thus avoid making a trip to the unemployment office.

------------------------------------
But the rate of Georgia lawyers filing for unemployment is increasing. Lawyers made up 24 percent of unemployment filers last month—compared to only 12 percent in March 2008.

[rayiner]

Bad news even in backwater states like Georgia, etc.

Fuck you. I hope your TTT JD got you a nice job selling BJs for $5 in NYC.

[pleasetryagain]

dont know if this has been posted but I just got it off drudge a few moments ago:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

any thoughts? how long (if ever) until hiring rebounds to pre-recession numbers?

[dresden doll]

Also, an article in the NYTimes about a Skadden associate's plan to use her year off (with 80k compensation)



Yes, but what if you never get that Skadden (or other Biglaw job) in the first place? What will you do with the debt load? Small firms sure as hell aren't hiring anybody. "Midlaw" will have their choice of experienced Biglaw refugees and isn't likely to do much hiring either. Governments are putting on hiring freezes as deficits sprial out of control.

Remember kids, OCI is a short 16 months away, not "three years" as many here assume. If you emerge jobless from OCI, you are in some really deep trouble. And anyone even entertaining the idea of a non-Top 14 school in this economy is clinically insane.

The healthy majority of posters here are headed for the T14 (and, no, GULC doesn't account for too many of such posters). Thanks for playing, though.

[bear market]

any thoughts? how long (if ever) until hiring rebounds to pre-recession numbers?


Probably never. The expansion of the credit bubble from the late 90s to last fall was an event unlikely to be repeated. These firms are really getting their teeth kicked in, and salaries will no doubt drop by the end of the year along with sharply curtailed hiring. These finance deals were the bread and butter, and now they are GONE.

Also, since one out of 50 associates last past the 5 year mark, look for the pigs to use more temps and more outsourcing the routine doc review crap to India. This crisis isn't some hiccup, its a kick in the ribs to the spoiled, repulsive pigs who operate these paper-churning slop-shops. Do you think partners will "sacrifice" any of their $$$ so that some 25 year old kid can make 160 K to do doc review that Pardeep over in Mumbia will do for $10 a week and some goat milk?:

--LinkRemoved--

Once jobs start flowing offshore, they don't come back. Contrary to the thrilling "issues" and excitment you all anticipate in Biglaw, most 1st and 2nd year associates do the same tedious doc review as the TTT loser temps, often sitting in the same area right alongside the losers. Doc review in NYC is now totally extinct since the ABA green-lighted outsourcing in an advisory opinion late last year.

I'd think long and hard before sinking 100 K + into ANY law school. The industry is in steep and rapid decline.

[texaslawyer]

It's bad.

[mwazaumoja]

So imagine how good it will be to ride the resulting economic boom that will come when the recession ends?

The way I see it, if things get much worse, we're talking ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE (a la Great Depression, or something else which can only be explained with capital letters) and if that were the case not much of anything could save us except fleeing to rural mexico to grow marijuana.

[Mr. Matlock]

Once jobs start flowing offshore, they don't come back.

US student lender firm to bring back jobs from India

April 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - America's largest private student lender Sallie Mae plans to move 2,000 overseas jobs back to the US from India and the Philippines, reversing a cost-savings measure the company took a year ago. The jobs are projected to cost the Reston-based student lender about $35 million annually because of higher labour expenses, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Do you fail as much in life as you do at arguing? I think this is a question you should take some serious "me-time" pondering. Good luck!

[ruleser]

Once jobs start flowing offshore, they don't come back.

US student lender firm to bring back jobs from India

April 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - America's largest private student lender Sallie Mae plans to move 2,000 overseas jobs back to the US from India and the Philippines, reversing a cost-savings measure the company took a year ago. The jobs are projected to cost the Reston-based student lender about $35 million annually because of higher labour expenses, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Do you fail as much in life as you do at arguing? I think this is a question you should take some serious "me-time" pondering. Good luck!

They come back if the government requires them, too - Obama said he will deal with free trade, close offshore loopholes. The government can get all the lost jobs back in a day, just with one good bill undoing all the outsource/offshore/free trade that sent the jobs away.

[stab master arson]

They come back if the government requires them, too - Obama said he will deal with free trade, close offshore loopholes. The government can get all the lost jobs back in a day, just with one good bill undoing all the outsource/offshore/free trade that sent the jobs away.

A bill could do all those things, but I doubt it would end up actually being "good" for anyone, especially the U.S.

[bear market]

You guys realize that OCI interviews will take place in the fall of 2010 (and not "three years" from now), right? Firms will be looking at their hiring needs in late spring/early summer of 2010, and the kids from the previous year with these deferred start dates will only be a few months into their jobs. Another firm pushed 'em back today:

--LinkRemoved--

In addition to this, they'll have lots of 2009 kids starting just about the time that this years incoming cycle are ready for OCI. Betcha hiring is going to be slimmer than its ever been in history. Many dreams will be shattered, because as many have pointed out if you miss biglaw/OCI you are going to be dreging the cesspool of craigslist scrounging for any shitjob you can get.

HTH

[Dick Whitman]

You guys realize that OCI interviews will take place in the fall of 2010 (and not "three years" from now), right?

HTH

I didn't the first time you said so, but your repetition has won the day. Although I will be going through OCI in only a few months, so I'm even more clinically insane.

Also, more racist, ignorant rants about outsourcing, please.

[Margarets]

You guys realize that OCI interviews will take place in the fall of 2010 (and not "three years" from now), right? Firms will be looking at their hiring needs in late spring/early summer of 2010, and the kids from the previous year with these deferred start dates will only be a few months into their jobs. Another firm pushed 'em back today:

--LinkRemoved--

In addition to this, they'll have lots of 2009 kids starting just about the time that this years incoming cycle are ready for OCI. Betcha hiring is going to be slimmer than its ever been in history. Many dreams will be shattered, because as many have pointed out if you miss biglaw/OCI you are going to be dreging the cesspool of craigslist scrounging for any shitjob you can get.

HTH

OCI might be in Fall 2010, and every year thereafter, but hiring is based on projected needs for the summer after you do your associateship.

No one is going to dispute that legal hiring will be down this season and next. The real question is how deep the decline will be. The answer to that question is simply "not bad." Rather than rely on hyperbole from fear-mongering, anonymous morons on the internet, I actually spoke to legal market analysts in various major markets, and the consensus seems to be that hiring will be down a good 30% or so. That's not bad at all.

Students in the top 14 law schools, especially top students, are considered "talent". Posting on TLS might make you forget this, but this "talent" is actually quite rare in the United States (and in the world), making us a rather hot commodity. There will always be demand for lawyers from top law schools. The difference during the upcoming recruiting seasons is that the market will be less of a law student market and more of a law firm market. That is to say, in 2007's OCI, firms were bending over backwards to get associates to join up: Want to split at our office in San Francisco? Sure! Hong Kong? Sure! Let's rent out Central Park Zoo and put an open bar in place! Take a nice vacation with that bar money you have! Do all the Pro Bono work you want. Now, firms are cutting back on perks. Asking to split between offices during an interview is suicide, and don't expect the perks to be lavish. Want to mention pro bono work? Just make sure the door doesn't hit your butt on the way out when you talk about your desire to help xyz organization on the firm's billable hours. Firms still want talent, but are not willing to spend as much to get it. The fact that they're still willing to hire is enough for me. Any perks on top of that are icing.

[dresden doll]

I'd think long and hard before sinking 100 K + into ANY law school. The industry is in steep and rapid decline.

Ah, I always knew the day when JDU started decrying value of HYS even would come.

[rayiner]

^^^ This is a somewhat good point. I've seen projections of hiring being down 36% this year.

My guess is that firms will try and spread out the hit over 2-3 OCI periods. They basically have to dump one whole class worth of graduates, and cutting 1/3 of hires over a period of 3 years will do the trick.