When will the legal market recover? Forum

[FutureLS10]

When is the legal market expected to recover?

[johnnyutah]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

[Stonewall]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

awesome! i feel so much better about writing that 150k check now. *goes back playing xbox while dreaming of models and bottles*

[Aqualibrium]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

+1

I read the article in the new ABA Journal that summarized those stats. Great read.

[FutureLS10]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

I do not care a out TTT. I am primarily inquiring about the biglaw firms' hiring projections.

[Aqualibrium]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

I do not care a out TTT. I am primarily inquiring about the biglaw firms' hiring projections.

Just go read the ABA Journal article for yourself bro. It's good stuff.

[Stonewall]

Sophisticated metrics predict that unemployment among Tier 3 graduates who finish near the median will drop to 11.857% in the year 2017.

I do not care a out TTT. I am primarily inquiring about the biglaw firms' hiring projections.

moderate hiring increases with each graduating class, nothing drastic

[LSATWIZ]

What constitutes employment according to this survey? Is McDonalds employment?

If it's all legal employment, even if they are only making 50k a year, this is very promising. Let's save the, "Oh, but they're in so much debt from school, blah, blah, blah." Yes it might take them 20 years to pay off their debt, but even in that, they can still live a decent quality of life, and there is a fair chance they are on average not that wonderful at what they do. Being able to live a decent quality of life doing something you aren't amazing at is not a bad deal. In all honesty, how hard is it to get into a tier-3 and finish in the middle? Almost half the general population could probably do that....

[buckilaw]

I doubt the legal market will return to pre ITE. Outsourcing and the use of contract attorneys to do document review has become more and more prevalant. Companies are going to be used to the lower costs associated with legal services and will want to keep those costs low. Furthermore, I don't trust the ABA to not allow even more substantive work from being outsourced to India. This may influence big law firms to move away from hiring large numbers of associates.

[Aqualibrium]

Upset that this conversation seems to have turned into a serious discussion after a couple of post that were obviously pretty sarcastic. Especially upset at LSATWIZ for discussing a real or imagined survey of the employment prospects of tier 3 grads at median 6 years from now...

[capn aa]

Upset that this conversation seems to have turned into a serious discussion after a couple of post that were obviously pretty sarcastic. Especially upset at LSATWIZ for discussing a real or imagined survey of the employment prospects of tier 3 grads at median 6 years from now...

Real or imagined?

[Aqualibrium]

Upset that this conversation seems to have turned into a serious discussion after a couple of post that were obviously pretty sarcastic. Especially upset at LSATWIZ for discussing a real or imagined survey of the employment prospects of tier 3 grads at median 6 years from now...

Real or imagined?

There is no survey that tries to determine the employment prospects of median tier 3 grads in 2017. Even if there was one, why would you discuss it?

[Fred_McGriff]

12/21/2012

[retake]

12/21/2012

TITCR.

[joeshmo39]

ITT: OP asks a question that is virtually impossible to answer OR If some could answer it with certainty they would be a very wealthy person not browsing this forum.

[Turtledove]

Just to be real for a second: The legal market will not be what it was circa 2006 for some time. It was artificially inflated at that time due to the property bubble and other sundry Wall Street speculation bubbles. Moreover, in the midst of the recession, there was a boom of outsourcing of work outside of the country and inside of the country to contract attorneys that handle doc review and due diligence work. Things might get a bit better but we really shouldn't expect the models and bottles era to return.

[TheTopBloke]

Mmmmm, doc review.

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

Outsourcing is not the problem yet.

The structural shift away from the Cravath model that dominated pre-ITE is going to shift the relative target range of graduates and employers all the way down the hierarchy to where unemployment will stay at high levels for the lower level schools, and less so at all the schools in between, indefinitely.

The future is dark my friend.

[Turtledove]

Outsourcing is not the problem yet.

The structural shift away from the Cravath model that dominated pre-ITE is going to shift the relative target range of graduates and employers all the way down the hierarchy to where unemployment will stay at high levels for the lower level schools, and less so at all the schools in between, indefinitely.

The future is dark my friend.

To be fair: that's my point. The Cravath model involved lots of doc review/due diligence for young associates with lots of high dollar per hour billing for the firm. It worked for the firm because they got to bill big dollars for the grunt work and it worked for the associates because those that didn't climb the ladder to partnership could at least get their bona fides to move to in-house or a partnership track at another firm. This model no longer works because clients demand outsourcing for these tasks and will not pay for 1st year associates to do these tasks at $200/hour when they can get a domestic contract attorney to do it at $25/hour or a foreign attorney to do it at $10/hour.

[Veyron]

It depends on what you mean by "recover."

It gets a bit better each year.

PRE ITE - 7 years-never.

NY 2 190!!! - maybe 10-15 years.

[Fark-o-vision]

It depends on what you mean by "recover."

It gets a bit better each year.

PRE ITE - 7 years-never.

NY 2 190!!! - maybe 10-15 years.

Listen to this one. He's ancient and knows the cycles. America has never gotten better after an economic meltdown. Ever.

[Veyron]

It depends on what you mean by "recover."

It gets a bit better each year.

PRE ITE - 7 years-never.

NY 2 190!!! - maybe 10-15 years.

Listen to this one. He's ancient and knows the cycles. America has never gotten better after an economic meltdown. Ever.

America = legal profession?

I'm going to throw this out there, and if you don't like it, well, just send it right back: Holland's economy is far bigger today than it was back during the tulup mania, but that don't mean that I can pay of my loans with flowers, now, does it?

[Fark-o-vision]

It depends on what you mean by "recover."

It gets a bit better each year.

PRE ITE - 7 years-never.

NY 2 190!!! - maybe 10-15 years.

Listen to this one. He's ancient and knows the cycles. America has never gotten better after an economic meltdown. Ever.

America = legal profession?

I'm going to throw this out there, and if you don't like it, well, just send it right back: Holland's economy is far bigger today than it was back during the tulup mania, but that don't mean that I can pay of my loans with flowers, now, does it?

Okay. I'm so fucking sick of that example, but okay. You're right. Things will never ever be as good as they were before. People will stop litigating, stop looking for advice, and stop merging.

Don't watch history channel for ten minutes, turn the news off for a day, and study even very recent history. When Bush Jr. came in the same prophets of doom were screaming that the end times were here. Recession, even big ones, are part of the capitalist cycle. before that it was the housing bust (that's right, it happened fifteen years ago, too) and before that there were an endless stream of calamities.

Look, I'm not trying to say that things will return to the same. I don't know. Maybe things never will get better. But acting like you have some inside information indicating they won't just makes you look like a pastiche of Beck, which isn't something you want to be.

[Veyron]

It depends on what you mean by "recover."

It gets a bit better each year.

PRE ITE - 7 years-never.

NY 2 190!!! - maybe 10-15 years.

Listen to this one. He's ancient and knows the cycles. America has never gotten better after an economic meltdown. Ever.

America = legal profession?

I'm going to throw this out there, and if you don't like it, well, just send it right back: Holland's economy is far bigger today than it was back during the tulup mania, but that don't mean that I can pay of my loans with flowers, now, does it?

Okay. I'm so fucking sick of that example, but okay. You're right. Things will never ever be as good as they were before. People will stop litigating, stop looking for advice, and stop merging.

Don't watch history channel for ten minutes, turn the news off for a day, and study even very recent history. When Bush Jr. came in the same prophets of doom were screaming that the end times were here. Recession, even big ones, are part of the capitalist cycle. before that it was the housing bust (that's right, it happened fifteen years ago, too) and before that there were an endless stream of calamities.

Look, I'm not trying to say that things will return to the same. I don't know. Maybe things never will get better. But acting like you have some inside information indicating they won't just makes you look like a pastiche of Beck, which isn't something you want to be.

(1) Really, that example has been used before? And here I thought Holland, of all places.

(2) I didn't say things wouldn't get better, I just said they won't be like boomties ever again where all you had to do to get biglaw was smile and first year comp was TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE THOUSAND fucking dollars.

[Fark-o-vision]

1) Yes. Used to death. Anytime anyone wants to illustrate a god damn bubble they use that tired example.

2) Fair enough.