boring

That NYT article was weak.

This is why newspapers are dying. They bring us the "news" weeks after it happens.

The NY Times is one of the advertisers on your site. Are you sure you want to bite the hand that feeds you?

Fifth!

Also, love the dramatic ending to the article. I can almost hear the "entitlement" haters in 3, 2, 1...

4 - It's called editorial independence.

The New York Times does scathing exposes on AIG and the big investment banks. Then those banks take out full-page ads in the Times (sometimes to say "we're not that bad").

Another example of why NYT is not worth the paper its printed on.

In defense of the Times, this is like an "overview" or "trend" article, summarizing past news developments.

(Admittedly it is still boring.)

This article isn't that bad. You tools forget you're not the center of the world, and not everyone spends their days sobbing for kids in their 20s (who, usually, were never very smart to begin) with wasting their time and money in second-rate law schools.

9 - Agreed, the article "isn't that bad."

But is that the new standard for the pinnacle of American journalism?

Stop reading Pravda US . . . .There are only two newspapers to read out there, the WSJ and the FT.

Actually, ATL hasn't said a peep about how bad 2011 OCI has been. Even top 1/3 students at T6 schools have been shut out - or will be shut out after callbacks are completed. So the NYT has scooped you on that.

Accord with 12. Some stories on callback rates would be nice.

@11 - I can't even take the WSJ anymore. I'd say just the FT. The WSJ began going downhill when they gave up the broadsheet format. Now that its a Murdoch holding, it is quickly becoming another worthless rag.

11 = FAIL

ATL has been covering every little stupid withdrawal by a firm from OCI. I was getting sick of it, in fact.

13 - It is too early to know callback rates.

Several of my friends spoke to this reporter and said he was really digging for stories of desperation. I'm surprised it made the NYT cut with the lackluster writing and, like others have said, not so newsworthy news. Oh wait..

17, I agree. The reporter's writing is lackluster (but trying hard to be "literary"). Embarrassing.

How about the fat editor actually writes a story about the disaster that is 2009 OCI? It's a good deal worse than anyone was predicting.

14,

I agree with you in part, but for section C and the OP ED (mainly the sections I read every day while glancing over the rest of section A) still decent, but I see what you're talking about.

Um 15, how do I fail? By stating my thoughts on good newspapers? That's some fine police work there Lou.

-11

11 is dead on. NYT = socialist propaganda machine. Lenin would be really proud of it.

QUINN REMAINS unamused by this verbose but unnecessary NYT article. And yes, I realize the irony of using a verbose and unnecessary comment to say that.

T-14 get "a taste of the toilet."

Of course, it's not worth a story in the NY Times unless the elite start to feel the pinch!

http://bigdebtsmalllaw.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/the-top-14-gets-a-taste-of-the-toilet/

Yeah, I agree the Yale comment was a little off, but the articile isn't so bad. It gives the lay audience a nice insight into this world of ours.

CWT OFFERS ARE OUT!

"socialist propaganda machine"

It's funny how "socialist" is now the dirty word of choice, rather than "liberal".

"Glittering names" - it may be "wildly off the mark" to a Vault-monkey like you Lat, but to 99.99999% of the population (including 99% of lawyers) it doesn't mean anything.

Lat - question for you, really. Take a step back and consider whether these distinctions really mean anything in the real world. And by real world, I don't just mean the general public hanging around the Starbucks that you go to, I mean the real world of actual practicing lawyers in large law firms (and not just the trolls that read your blog every day.)

Lat,

The difference between your blog and institutions that produce actual journalism is that the latter perform the dying art of "reporting," also known as "journalism." You might have heard of it. You don't learn it by going to Yale Law School and then blogging for joke websites. It's an ancient ritual where people known as "reporters" call other people and interview them and use information gathered in that intrerview to interview other people and on into the dozens, until they have gathered enough information to produce what was once known as "news."

Kudos on your occasional forays into the actual acquisition of original information. But what real journalists do day in and day out is just a tad bit more difficult than waiting for emails to arrive in your inbox saying that X Firm is laying people off, then calling X Firm's PR office to confirm.

In the world of actual journalism, what you do (in the rare instances when you're not just linking to other people's work) is known as "press-release reporting," and all of the kisass forums in the world where you sit on the same stage as Nina Totenberg and Linda Greenhouse can't mask the fact that you're little more than a parasite.

26,

That's becasue liberals don't hate America like socialists do. Too bad the democrats have few liberals left and mostly socialists.

28 = Old-school newspaper reporter who is about to be laid off.

Given the number of young lawyers fired over the last 10 months or so, it is surprising that there is any hiring at all right now. I think it is fair to assume that this is the bottom of the recession, as far as the legal market goes.

28, to be fair, this legal blog did scoop all other journalists with its groundbreaking insights into the Good Samaritan liability of Skip Gates's neighbor.
Yes we can.

"That's becasue liberals don't hate America like socialists do. Too bad the democrats have few liberals left and mostly socialists."

That's funny because "liberals hate America" was the slogan of choice a few years ago.

28 - Your points go more to the difference between a blog and a newspaper.

Newspaper reporters can work on a single story for weeks. Blog reporters have to put up ten things a day.

That's why newspaper reporters can afford to wear out the shoe leather, make dozens of phone calls, etc. They have the luxury of time.

- Ex-newspaper reporter who saw the writing on the wall and went to law school

ATL rules. NYT drools.

The WSJ Law Blog thinks the NYT article is "good":

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/08/26/with-biglaw-jobs-drying-up-help-us-help-julia/

Can't blame the old-school reporters too much. I'd be angry and bitter also if I saw my profession collapsing into nothing all around me.

37 - "I'd be angry and bitter also if I saw my profession collapsing into nothing all around me."

Are you a lawyer?

NYTTTimes

33

I'm talking about it in the classical sense of the terms not what assclowns who call themselves conservatives do and say. Those clowns are besmirching the term conservative and probably don't even comprehend the original meaning of the terms liberal and conservative in teh arena of American politics.

-29

28 - The NYT produces "actual journalism." Like what we got from Jayson Blair and Judy Miller.

More boring rather than incorrect. Actually a pretty good description of ATL most days since Lat left.

"Julia Figurelli, a second-year student at the University of Pennsylvania"

“'Had I seen where the market was going, I would’ve gone to a lower-ranked but less expensive public school'”

Indeed! UPenn Philly campus is one of the most expensive public schools in the country!

Lat's right that no self-respecting Yalie would be caught dead summering at Baker & McKenzie. I'm surprised that Baker even went to Yale in years past.

How did the 2l in the article manage to take out over $200K in loans? It doesn't say that is what he projects his total loans will be (as it does with the woman in the article), it says that is what he took out before he enrolled last September. Is that even possible?

Listen, even with the cuts in the summer classes, it's not like we are facing some unknown pit of the apocalypse. The fact is that over the last 6 years or so, summer classes have ballooned together with the other bubbles we had going on. I interviewed as a T3 2L in the late 90s, right when the tech boom was just starting. I was in the top 1/3 of the class but did not get call backs from everywhere, nor did I get offers from all call-backs, and that was not unusual. I summered at a V10 firm, which had their "largest summer class ever" - 75 summer associates altogether in all of their offices. Basically everyone was from T5 schools, with a smattering of T14 and a couple of stars from lower-ranked schools. Two or three years ago, the same firm's summer class was close to 170! One of the partners there I'm friends with said then that it was almost impossible to find qualified law students, and that they were dipping lower into classes and schools than they ever had (and didn't like the results). Yes, we had a bubble, now it's burst and we won't see 170-associate summer classes again for the foreseeable future, but this doesn't mean all new law school grads (especially top grads) will be jobless, or even will have trouble finding jobs.

45 - That sounds like incorrect (or imprecise) wording and/or reporting.

I have been asked by my firm to go up to Harvard to conduct OCI interviews.

Get down and kiss my TTT ring, you little bastards!!!

"I can almost hear the "entitlement" haters...."

That's because modern law students reek of entitlement, no? Quoting just from the article, the man stated, “It was almost written in stone that you’ll end up in a law firm, almost like a birthright.” The woman "expected to find a lucrative law firm job in three years." Even the assistant dean for career services at the NYU Law admitted to complicity in fostering this sense of entitlement, as “Students came in with a certain sense of what the compact was going to be."

These attitudes are not unique among law students and young lawyers.

28 / 41 / 45 / 47: Don't forget Alessandra Stanley:

"The Times published an especially embarrassing correction on July 22, fixing seven errors in a single article — an appraisal of Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman famed for his meticulous reporting. The newspaper had wrong dates for historic events; gave incorrect information about Cronkite’s work, his colleagues and his program’s ratings; misstated the name of a news agency, and misspelled the name of a satellite."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02pubed.html

49 - So true. They are in for a rude awakening.

"I'm talking about it in the classical sense of the terms not what assclowns who call themselves conservatives do and say. Those clowns are besmirching the term conservative and probably don't even comprehend the original meaning of the terms liberal and conservative in teh arena of American politics."

If you're using terms in a way that's different from their ordinary usage, you should make it clear that you are doing so regardless of whether or not your usage is the original one.

But thanks for the explanation. Now it makes sense.

I LOVE how they are predicting the legal market for 2011 and 2012 jd grads.....

because everyone was so adept at seeing this coming, we really should trust their predictions of the future...hahahha yeah f***ing right, NOBODY knows what's around thebend NOBODY

45: Could that 200k include some undergrad loans?

28 - I think Lat is familiar with the world of print journalism. He has written for the New York Times, the New York Observer, Washingtonian, and New York magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lat

54 - Maybe, but the article is not clearly written. Here is what it says:

"After he lost his job as a television reporter two years ago, Derek Fanciullo considered law school, thinking it was a historically sure bet. He took out 'a ferocious amount of debt,' he said — $210,000, to be exact — and enrolled last September in the School of Law at New York University."

This makes it sound like the $210K was taken out BEFORE he started at NYU (as opposed to some from undergrad and some incurred with each new year of law school).

Sloppy writing I think.

46, yes it does. You will have a LOT of trouble finding work. Any work. Trust me.

I love it. Now the "Top 25" douchebags get a taste of what Tier 2 law students have been going through for years. Either graduate with top grades or NO JOB FOR YOU!

They might have examined why the law schools--which use the high tuitions of law students and relatively low overhead of their law programs to finance the rest of their university programs--have so totally ignored the mess going on for their law graduates. Of course, the law schools have done nothing to prepare for the coming disappearance of their law school cannon fodder.

46, what does this mean: "One of the partners there I'm friends with said then that it was almost impossible to find qualified law students." What's wrong with law students, and what are these partners looking for?!

34 apparently didn't see the writing on the next wall...

61 - 34 here. Yeah, tell me about it!

But it could have been worse. At least I didn't go into finance.

(And at least I have great grades at an H-Y-S school.)

49, you can castigate people who complain about being fired when there is no work, but regarding the schools, the expectation of a good job was reasonable (not in a R90 sense, OK), and, for a long time, it was supported by solid industry microeconomics.

In fact, the trouble with T10 law school placement was the roaring vacuum sucking people into firm jobs and the schools supressing or ignoring promotion of non-firm opportunities. As a second year you would have been seen as raving mad or a hard core public interest person (i.e., counting on LRAP) to actually not participate in EiP. It was clear by then that the whole scheme required some period of firm indenture, independent wealth, or a massive handout from the school

So to castigate students as "entitled" because they signed on to this scheme is a little too easy and not completely honest. The schools are getting away like bandits in this "entitlement" blame game. Students, lawyers, firms, financial industry clients are all eating big shit sandwiches in this recession but the schools continue to raise rates, roll out the lavish catering spreads for their pointless seminars, and hire more faculty to write 20 versions of the same article on some abstract nonsense.

55= David Lat's mom.

63 - Amen. It is the law schools - esp. the lower-ranked diploma mills - that are the villains here.

Any reform of the profession has to start with the schools.

64 - I should hope that Lat's mom does not read ATL comments. The same goes (maybe double) for Elie's mom and Kash's mom.

Thank you, 63. There are some of us at top schools that aren't here just for the money but made the "right" decision 1-2 years ago to go to the best school possible and consider the debt an investment in a solid career. And yes, that includes being set up with employers for jobs right after graduation. Outside of the 10% of my class that are prestige whores/douches/legacy admits, job prospects at graduation are most certainly the #1 reason anybody in my class came here as opposed to taking a free ride elsewhere.

Hate on us if you want, but we're not all clueless 21 year olds with God complexes. Some of us made a bad choice a year ago and are trying to deal with the consequences of a market that went out of control after we started.

65--that won't happen because law schools are big money makers. Think of it--large classes, no lab equipment--it all goes to the bottom line.

67 = win. But, you have to admit, there aren't many of you in law school with this kind of attitude. It'll ultimately lead to success, while your classmates wallow in their own pity-party.

"[T]he expectation of a good job was reasonable...and, for a long time, it was supported by solid industry microeconomics."

Hardly. Even before the recession, there was a significant portion of "top tier" law students who wouldn't be able to secure biglaw positions. This wasn't unknown, and law school naturally tried to hide this, but law students just closed their eyes, continuing to imagine that their "birthright" was to enter biglaw.

Looks to me like the current recruiting system only gives jobs to those people who have truly demonstrated that they have potential and can add value to the firm down the road. The days of getting an automatic job at a "top" firm because you went to, and barely graduated from, a "top" school are over. Now, you must graduate at the top of your class, work hard and make minimal mistakes as a summer, and not be a complete social misfit if you want to get a job. This is something that people in the supposed "TTT" schools have always had to do. Welcome, Yalies, to a little thing the rest of us know as the real world.

As for Lat claiming that he's somehow "scooped" the NYT? Please. Perhaps part of the "entitlement" complex that many of you insist is present in this generation is the idea that anyone outside of this profession cares about our hiring practices. Why in the world would the Times rush to get this story out the door?

"And yes, that includes being set up with employers for jobs right after graduation."

And what type of research did you perform regarding your post-law school employment? Check the school's self-reported employment stats? Read ATL about "New York to 190?" Watch "Ally McBeal?"

71 - If I were the Times, I wouldn't have done this story at all. It's a trade publication story. What makes them look lame is that they are doing this story but doing it so late.

That said, it will probably still make the NYT "most emailed" list.

72 - LOL, "NY to 190."

I miss those days!!!

Lat's post is only mildly snarky. Gawker slashes the NYT twice as badly before noon each day.

73 - It already has - #3 on the Most E-Mailed list.

NYT = best mainstream newspaper in America. Always has been, always will be. It is the gold standard to which all newspapers aspire.

Except newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Those papers are just part of the Republican propoganda machine.

77--agree and I love the NYT but it does have a bias as well. Just one you agree with.

I am a huge fan of the Times. I have subscribed, in print, for longer than I can remember.

That said, this article was not the best - competent, but not as good as most NYT pieces.

I suspect that Lat would have written nicer things about this article if the reporter had name-checked him and/or ATL.

Bias? Please. According to Republicans, EVERY mainstream media outlet, except those in Murdoch's empire, is biased.

Okay, so I am a May graduate from a TT in a smaller market. I was Law Review, top 20% of the class, and have a solid practical background working in smaller local firms. As of right now, I cant even land a doc review position to wait this crisis out. Anyone have any suggestions, because right now I can't get anything in law (besides suicide)?

Oh yeah, the other big problem is that I was a poli sci major.

77 clearly does not read the Wall Street Journal. The NYT is in debt up to its eyeballs from that monstrosity it built. If/when it goes under or is sold off, I will not be sad.

77

Name between every publication owned by Murdoch and the NYT - name the publications where editors have admitted to making up facts to sensationalize stories, using photoshop to edit pictures to make them more "compelling", columnists admitted to making up "anonymous sources."

The answer: NYT. Enjoy ignorance.

I dont agree with Murdoch, but facts speak for themselves -- unless you're reading the NYT, then the facts are flexible,

73: So late? Reporting on the prospective hiring practices for the class of 2011 is late in 2009? Even under our current system that's a bit of an overstatement. Under the system to come (i.e. not making any hiring decisions until 2L spring), this article is certainly well ahead of the trend. That it's not horribly interesting is a different matter entirely.

I still prefer NYT's actual citation to sources at law schools and firms. It sure beats ATL's propensity for concluding that "something is going on over at Skadden," and then hoping someone is charitable enough to send them a "tip" to fill in the blanks.

82, there is nothing you can do except watch your loans accrue at 9% while you slowly become a pseudo-alcoholic.

- unemployed 2007 TT grad, history major from top 15 liberal arts college

86,

Per haps you should have earned a ugrad degree worth more than the paper it was printed on. Maybe a degree that taught you a marketable skill, not just a mill designed to inflate your gpa and get you into a law school.

87--maybe he learned to read and write and think--that's what a good liberal arts education teaches you. As a hiring partner I will always favor liberal arts majors over the business and acctg majors.

28 was one bitter dude/dudette.

88 - ha. then call him up an hire him.

Per haps you should have learned to read, write, and think better. I never said business and accounting majors are the only one that provided those skills. It seems odd to me that you feel none of the sciences, engineering, economics, business, and math majors would provide marketable skills.

Also, if you want anyone to believe you are a hiring partner -- at least at anything more than a crap-tacular 2 person PI firm, don't post on ATL. No hiring partner at even a 10 person boutique has actually reads this stuff...

86 - What I am trying to get at is this, do you just do nothing or do you work in some seriously underemployed situation?

87- Yeah, I should have done that, unfortunately I was young and naive and really like studying and talking about politics. What is your excuse for being an asshole?

-82

82/91,

Being an engineering major - graded on a bell curve (like the first year of law school) for 3 years of college while my liberal arts major friends partied and got Bs for showing up to class and As for writing their names on paper. That's my excuse.

92

You kind of sound like the type that might shoot up an LA Fitness one day, let us all hope not.

81 - when was the last time you saw anything other than a left (or far left) opinion in NYT?
Presenting only one side of a debate is called bias.

Thank God Elie didn't post this.

I can now, with a clean conscience, write: Pot calling kettle black.

ATL is constantly late to the party, and I've never complained. But it takes some brass for ATL to make this accusation...

93,

Wow. Using that logic, you sound like someone that might move to montana, live in a shack with a bucket and a typewriter, and send out "packages."

92.

New blog post:

"Top 14 Get a Taste of the Toilet"

http://bigdebtsmalllaw.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/the-top-14-gets-a-taste-of-the-toilet/

what does TT mean?
-noob

Joe Kennedy: I knew there would be a severe depression when the paper boy gave ne a stock tip.

Me: I knew that there was a Biglaw bubble when I heard Reed Smith was paying $160k for first year associates.

77

Are you actually saying there is no bias in the NYT? If so I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

More Dechert layoffs coming after OCI and callbacks are completed.

I don't know why the folks at NYU, Georgetown, and Yale are bitching, everyone at the University of Houston Law School is doing just fine during OCI. Folks are getting at least 16 interviews.

http://texaslawyer.typepad.com/texas_lawyer_blog/2009/08/a-bright-spot-in-the-legaljobs-recession.html

92: what type of engineering major? b/c if it was civil or mechanical, you need to shut it.

might as well have done women's studies...

103 - the type to give me a good paying job out of college and a great job out of law school this year.

i wasn't mechanical, but i wouldn't throw stones at them. big law firms love jd's with mechanical-e backgrounds.

Not sure why this should be obvious to everyone. Lawyers don't seem to understand how hard new physicians are hurting.

"In fairness to the NYT, they're writing for a general audience"...read...."we'd like to thank NYT for advertising on ATL"

103: good for you. at my ip bigtique, the civil engineers just say "engineering" in their bio's. The mechanical? Depends on the school...

90--maybe because sometimes someone with some experience has to comment because all the 2L's and 3L's that think they know how the world works and law firm should be run might occasionally benefit--but I realize that you know everything so you don't need any help

102 - Nobody cares about the number of OCI interviews. It's the number of callbacks received that really matters.

107 - agreed on the civil and industrial engineers, although returning to my original point, they are more marketable - but in and out of law - than say, a history major.

103.