Will Recession Lost Legal Jobs Come Back? Forum

[ksllaw]

I think the whole 'ITE as the new normal' thing has been covered, but part of what hasn't been touched on is that the comfort and true 'boom' of the 2000s is also gone. Starting salaries haven't increased in however many years. Bonuses have decreased. Most importantly, the level of job security where you could stay on longer than today and land somewhere safe has evaporated. People aren't really given 12-24 months to coast and look for a new job. Sure, you may get reviews and a six month notice that you should try to look at other options and you may still get three months severance, but your exit options aren't what they used to be.

I've asked about that last part a number of times, but it seems there wasn't any solid data on that beyond anecdotal evidence - I'm talking about the biglaw exit options here.

I think we can assume that government options are frozen (due to the general hiring freeze).

But what of laterals to biglaw, midlaw, in-house, and small law? Campos identifies some structural changes in biglaw that will likely not bring back certain types of work there, but I wonder about whether structural changes would affect any of these exit option areas out of biglaw (not including laterals back into biglaw, of course).

Will non-biglaw jobs eventually rebound?

[LRGhost]

I've asked about that last part a number of times, but it seems there wasn't any solid data on that beyond anecdotal evidence - I'm talking about the biglaw exit options here.

I think we can assume that government options are frozen (due to the general hiring freeze).

But what of laterals to biglaw, midlaw, in-house, and small law? Campos identifies some structural changes in biglaw that will likely not bring back certain types of work there, but I wonder about whether structural changes would affect any of these exit option areas out of biglaw (not including laterals back into biglaw, of course).

Will non-biglaw jobs eventually rebound?

There really isn't going to be a whole lot of data on it. I think most of your big law class is out before the become fourth years. Could you survive longer? Sure. Are you likely too? Absolutely not. Are some of the departures self-selected? Sure. But some of it becomes muddled between who wants to stay and says "Yeah, I'm getting tired of the grind" to save face and who actually wants to go. Nevertheless, even if you want to stay, there's no guarantee or security so it's pointless to have an attitude of expectations regardless of your ability to work hard. I don't know much about options but from what I've read, I'd say that getting a government job would come down to luck and connections. You might be able to lateral to a lower ranked firm and wait out another year or two, but you're still not making partner and you're still going to have to look for something else. If you're in midlaw, maybe you can grind it out a bit more, maybe you have a book of business that is valuable enough to them, who knows. In-house seems to be where a lot of people want to go but you still need to survive three or so years in big law to get something that's going to be 'good'.

You can look at linkedin for people with recent firm history.

But it comes down to what you want. Are you content moving back home and working in a small regional or local firm? You'd probably have an easier time at that than trying to stay in the V50. But the legal economy is almost certainly not going to recover to the point of waiting around for a cool in-house job to chill at 40 hours a week. There's no need for that to happen again. This is the recovery. What happened before was the peak. We're plateauing.

[jwinaz]

What about the impact of oversupply on small law and any trickling down effects from better law jobs being lost?

[ksllaw]

What about the impact of oversupply on small law and any trickling down effects from better law jobs being lost?

Disclaimer: These are a few inferences I'm making based on the data/comments here without necessarily knowing how small law works or what the exact trickle down might be from all areas that are losing jobs.
----------------------
From Campos' analysis above, it doesn't seem it's the oversupply of lawyers in small law that makes it difficult to practice (from what I can tell).

He actually says that analysis of demand suggests that many indigent people are actually very much in need of legal services. There is more demand than currently small lawyers are tapping into. But the problem seems to be (according to Campos' analysis) that people are unable to afford to pay for these services. And it's not because the services are overpriced (from the lawyers' perspective), but because so few Americans have money these days period.

[NYstate]

The NALP summer hiring data that was just released confirms no improvement in hiring is to be expected. Hiring is flat or down and 3L hiring doesn't exist. See Radlulz thread:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... hilit=Nalp

[ksllaw]

The NALP summer hiring data that was just released confirms no improvement in hiring is to be expected. Hiring is flat or down and 3L hiring doesn't exist. See Radlulz thread:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... hilit=Nalp

Thanks for posting this, sunynp. I rarely check that forum area, so this was helpful.

Any ideas or speculation as to the reasons behind the step back in OCI hiring this past year?

Possible that associates are staying longer in their jobs and thus lower attrition rates in firms as rayiner talked about in earlier posts in this thread?

[LRGhost]

The NALP summer hiring data that was just released confirms no improvement in hiring is to be expected. Hiring is flat or down and 3L hiring doesn't exist. See Radlulz thread:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... hilit=Nalp

Thanks for posting this, sunynp. I rarely check that forum area, so this was helpful.

Any ideas or speculation as to the reasons behind the step back in OCI hiring this past year?

Possible that associates are staying longer in their jobs and thus lower attrition rates in firms as rayiner talked about in earlier posts in this thread?

Whether there are marginally more mid-levels doesn't impact summer hiring and firms would push people out regardless.

[star fox]

I've asked about that last part a number of times, but it seems there wasn't any solid data on that beyond anecdotal evidence - I'm talking about the biglaw exit options here.

I think we can assume that government options are frozen (due to the general hiring freeze).

But what of laterals to biglaw, midlaw, in-house, and small law? Campos identifies some structural changes in biglaw that will likely not bring back certain types of work there, but I wonder about whether structural changes would affect any of these exit option areas out of biglaw (not including laterals back into biglaw, of course).

Will non-biglaw jobs eventually rebound?

There really isn't going to be a whole lot of data on it. I think most of your big law class is out before the become fourth years. Could you survive longer? Sure. Are you likely too? Absolutely not. Are some of the departures self-selected? Sure. But some of it becomes muddled between who wants to stay and says "Yeah, I'm getting tired of the grind" to save face and who actually wants to go. Nevertheless, even if you want to stay, there's no guarantee or security so it's pointless to have an attitude of expectations regardless of your ability to work hard. I don't know much about options but from what I've read, I'd say that getting a government job would come down to luck and connections. You might be able to lateral to a lower ranked firm and wait out another year or two, but you're still not making partner and you're still going to have to look for something else. If you're in midlaw, maybe you can grind it out a bit more, maybe you have a book of business that is valuable enough to them, who knows. In-house seems to be where a lot of people want to go but you still need to survive three or so years in big law to get something that's going to be 'good'.

You can look at linkedin for people with recent firm history.

But it comes down to what you want. Are you content moving back home and working in a small regional or local firm? You'd probably have an easier time at that than trying to stay in the V50. But the legal economy is almost certainly not going to recover to the point of waiting around for a cool in-house job to chill at 40 hours a week. There's no need for that to happen again. This is the recovery. What happened before was the peak. We're plateauing.

It's been a pretty crappy "recovery" overall. I have no idea why so many young people voted for Obama when the recovery he has boasted about has done nothing towards helping people get jobs out of college.

Places realized when they had to make big layoffs that those people weren't really needed to begin with. The boomers see that they can get one last big payday by just cutting entry level payroll. If you have no technical skills and your only value is with your mind then you are in a significantly worse spot than you were pre-recession. It's not just lawyers (although the debt it requires to go to Law School makes it such a strong and perhaps most egregious example). Look at people getting MBAs these days. They're not exactly getting awesome jobs out of school unless they went to Harvard..

[LRGhost]

It's been a pretty crappy "recovery" overall. I have no idea why so many young people voted for Obama when the recovery he has boasted about has done nothing towards helping people get jobs out of college.

Places realized when they had to make big layoffs that those people weren't really needed to begin with. The boomers see that they can get one last big payday by just cutting entry level payroll. If you have no technical skills and your only value is with your mind then you are in a significantly worse spot than you were pre-recession. It's not just lawyers (although the debt it requires to go to Law School makes it such a strong and perhaps most egregious example). Look at people getting MBAs these days. They're not exactly getting awesome jobs out of school unless they went to Harvard..

Leaving politics out of this, an M7 MBA with decent work experience going in is still lucrative.

[star fox]

It's been a pretty crappy "recovery" overall. I have no idea why so many young people voted for Obama when the recovery he has boasted about has done nothing towards helping people get jobs out of college.

Places realized when they had to make big layoffs that those people weren't really needed to begin with. The boomers see that they can get one last big payday by just cutting entry level payroll. If you have no technical skills and your only value is with your mind then you are in a significantly worse spot than you were pre-recession. It's not just lawyers (although the debt it requires to go to Law School makes it such a strong and perhaps most egregious example). Look at people getting MBAs these days. They're not exactly getting awesome jobs out of school unless they went to Harvard..

Leaving politics out of this, an M7 MBA with decent work experience going in is still lucrative.

Wasn't trying to make any real political statement (not like Romney would have been better, efficiency cuts are what private equity is all about and if that costs employees their jobs oh well.. Personally I didn't vote even though I have a heavy interest in politics). Just found many of my generations optimism to be misplaced.

I'm sure an M7 MBA is great. I didn't mean Harvard 100 % literally. A degree from a top 6 law school with work experience is still pretty good as well. Just saying the economic (structural/cyclical??) problems are not only limited to law grads, although with the 3 year attendance and skyrocketed tuition they certainly have a front spot in line to complain about their struggles.

[grapefruits]

Bubble + outsourcing = unlikely, any time soon, to make up as large a percentage of employed Americans as it once had.