legal market

It’s hard to admit it’s getting better: Legal Market Update October 2010

I’ve been holding back on doing this. Dreading it, in fact. The last time I posted about the legal employment market, the stastics out there showed little growth in May, and a dive back into the negatives in June. At the same time, the nation was dealing with a massive oil spill, Greek debt crises abroad, and latent unemployment everywhere driving what was supposed to be a “Summer of Recovery.”

Well, summer is at an end. The markets have been up for a month. Students who were fortunate enough to win the Summer Associate BigLaw lottery are looking at higher retention rates (and job security) and helping clear the field a bit for the 3Ls still looking for work. Legal employment numbers were also up for August and September.

But there’s still a lingering uncertainty in the stormy legal market. More and more entry-level legal jobs (and document review jobs that unemployed attorneys could rely upon) are being shipped to India. And then there’s that backlog of graduates from the last two years who have been unable to find work — those who haven’t given up on their dreams of legal employment may be coming back into the market to fight for jobs, even if their contract attorney work experience doesn’t carry much weight.

Sources near me tell me that even for low-paying legal secretary jobs at their firm, they are seeing hundreds of unemployed J.D.-toting applicants. It’s both an absurd and sad testament to the times.

So – are things on the mend? Probably so.

Are the nervous 3Ls who have watched the two law classes before them sentenced to unemployment purgatory beeming with excitement? Not yet, at least. And it’s fair to say not for awhile.

[UPDATED: Things are looking better for 2016]

Clerking in the Tropics (3): The Northern Mariana Islands

This is a continuation highlighting clerking opportunities outside of the fifty U.S. States available for American law graduates. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (“CNMI”) is the third stop in a series on seeking out clerkships in U.S. Territories. Located just north of Guam, the Judiciary of the Northern Mariana Islands includes Saipan.

The site for the Northern Mariana Islands judiciary is located here, and includes information on the CNMI Supreme Court and CNMI Superior Court.

Unlike Palau and American Samoa, however, I have been unable to get replies from the folks over at CNMI. Life over there must be just that good. It is worth noting, however, that also unlike Palau and American Samoa, data on CNMI judges is available on the OSCAR Symplicity site, which is the primary hub of U.S. Clerkship applications. Any openings, and the means of applying for them, will likely be available there.

5014879464_d21488a778_b

Yes, the Situation Really Can Be That Bad

This site is as much about giving prospective students a clear picture of the legal market landscape as much as it is about anything else. And, when it comes to law school (or any other graduate level education), knowing what your end game is going to be is critical. That’s because law school is nothing like your undergraduate years. It’s three years of high-intensity, high-cost study — and if you don’t know what you’re going to do after that, it can be the road to ruin.

Especially now.

Even with the recession bottoming out, going to law school is more akin to playing the lottery than it is to educating yourself into prosperity. Of course, if you lose the lottery, you don’t wind up in triple-figure debt. If you lose out in law school, different story.

Although the economic collapse hit in late 2008, the legal market remains in the doldrums. June’s employment numbers were again in the negative, after May added as few as 300 jobs for the pool of unemployed attorneys and law graduates from 2008-2010 to fight over.

The point in all this is simple: the legal market really doesn’t know what it is at the moment. It doesn’t make job finding impossible — but it does mean that, more than ever before, luck is playing just as significant a role as skill, hard-work, and networking.

If you are considering law school, realize that the moment you sign up you are making a bet. You are gambling that in three years time the employment market for legal jobs will have reached some sense of balance, and that that balance will be in your favor to get a job.

And while there are plenty of voices out there still lauding the value of a legal education, you need to recognize that if you are coming to law school, you are still taking a gamble. And there is still the chance that you will roll snake eyes.

[UPDATED: Things are looking better for 2016]

Clients Unwilling to Pay for Inexperienced Legal Help May Have No Choice

The 2008-2009 recession didn’t just translate to thousands of layoffs, it also meant the scaling back of training by lots of the large firms. For the first time since late 2008, last month was the first sign of positive job growth in the legal sector, albeit with a paltry 300 jobs (compared to 22,200 lost during the recession), and no one quite knows the quality of these jobs, either.

Despite the modest bump in jobs, however, large firm summer associate programs still remain non-existent, cut by about 80% due to the recession — and large firm clients still remain unwilling to pay for the legal work done by law student summer associates, making summer associate programs even more expensive for firms across the country.

Cutting jobs AND cutting training opportunities, however, may be the golden ticket for law grads as the recession abates and work picks up, especially with mid-level and senior level associates looking to escape from big firms. AbovetheLaw recently posted a great overview of the possible upcoming legal staffing shortage, available here.

Law School as an Investment

While the following article makes an interesting analogy to the law school investment as a Rule 10b-5 securities violation, this article is just as important to prospective students because it has all of the numbers of the current legal employment market, including: the number of graduating law students landing jobs, starting salaries, and the number of firms hiring out there to help make an informed decision on whether or not the trials, tribulations, and tremendous cost of law school are worthwhile. Definitely worth a look.

The article can be found at AdamSmithEsq.com

Prospectives, “You may want to reconsider.”

A newly published article out of the American Bar Association features ABA Chariman for the commission studying the impact of the economic downturn on the legal profession entreating potential law students to think twice before going after a law degree.

ABA Journal article found here.

Full WSJ article found here.