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Career Center: Attorneys Aren't Seeing Green Shoots

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We received over 1300 responses to last week’s Career Center survey on how lawyers feel about their careers in light of the recession.  Despite economists’ encouraging words about the light at the end of the tunnel, respondents across the country remain deeply concerned for themselves and the legal industry as a whole.  Although the economy has pulled out of its tailspin, recovering financial institutions and businesses are no longer generating the same level of legal work they once did, making it extremely difficult for major corporate law firms to stage their own comebacks.  With business stagnating, several major law firms have gone out of business , and waves of layoffs have left thousands of big firm attorneys without jobs and countless others thinking they could be cut next. Check out the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link, for more on which firms are starting to recover from the downturn and which firms continue to struggle.

Check out the survey results, after the jump.

Overall, the survey results highlight the growing lack of confidence attorneys have in the ability of the legal profession to weather the economic storm, at least in the near future.  An astounding 81% of respondents expressed some concern about their legal career or the profession:

  • 33% believed that the legal profession as a whole is in trouble;
  • 25% felt that their individual career as a lawyer is in trouble; and
  • 24% did not think that their individual career is in jeopardy, but felt that other lawyers should be concerned.
  • 16% of respondents report being laid off and looking for a job, up from just 6% last year at this time.

No doubt more recent news of firms deferring start dates, cutting salaries, no-offering summer associates, and laying off even more attorneys, have impacted respondents.

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In addition, a significant percentage of working attorneys indicated that business at their firm is slow , yet another signal that the legal industry is having a hard time breaking free of the global economic slowdown.  Nearly one-third of employed respondents reported that they will not have enough work to meet their firms’ annual minimum billable hours requirement (perhaps the reason for the end of lockstep compensation at this firm).   Another 28% of working attorneys indicated that business overall is sluggish:

  • 16% said that business is slow but that they would still meet the billable hours requirement –
  • 12% said that although business is not slow for them personally, it is slow for other colleagues at their firm

Only 29% stated that they did not believe that business is slow at their firms and only 12% reported that business at their firms is active enough to warrant hiring new attorneys (and at least one firm is moving up start dates to address this). Finally, only 31% of all respondents stated that they were happy in their current position and not seeking a new job. 

 

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