Biglaw, Media and Journalism, New York Times, Shameless Plugs

The Bloom Is Off the Biglaw Rose

By  
on

Legal blogs and trade publications have been writing about “The Death of Big Law” for months. But now it’s official. The patient has been pronounced dead by no less an authority than the New York Times. Who needs the fat lady to sing when the Gray Lady has spoken?
First, a quick caveat. Obviously Biglaw hasn’t “died”; large law firms continue to exist, and they continue to be very profitable. They may have to evolve with changing times, but they are still with us, and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. What has died, rather, is a certain version of Biglaw, full of fabulosity, fun and frothiness — think Biglaw, circa 2007. May it rest in peace.
So, on to the article. It appeared in print in yesterday’s Sunday Styles — yes, the Style section, normally the home of wedding announcements and trendspotting pieces (sometimes of questionable validity). Despite its location in a guilty pleasure of a section, however, it’s a solid and hard-hitting piece.
The reporter, Alex Williams, begins by discussing The Deep End, the new ABC show set in a law firm (and previously mocked by Elie). It features associates having tons o’ fun — which makes it ridiculously outdated (assuming it ever was accurate). Williams writes:

“The Deep End” was conceived in 2007, that halcyon era of $160,000 starting salaries and full employment even for law grads who had scored in the 150s on their LSAT’s.

Those days are over. As the profession lurches through its worst slump in decades, with jobs and bonuses cut and internal pressures to perform rising, associates do not just feel as if they are diving into the deep end, but rather, drowning.

As you can tell from this excerpt, the article is stylishly written and fun to read. Although it might not tell regular ATL readers much that will surprise them, it’s a well-reported wrap-up of where things stand now, sure to be appreciated by a general audience. (It’s also much better than the Times’s last major effort to tackle Biglaw as a topic.)
The piece has been at or near the top of the NYT’s “Most E-Mailed” list for a few days now (since it first appeared online well before it showed up yesterday in print). Help it stay on the list by emailing the article to your parents or friends. Or do a good deed, and email it to that cousin of yours who is thinking about going to law school. She’ll thank you later.
Okay, that was a cheap shot — there are legitimate reasons to go to law school. But there are also things about the law, as a profession and as a business, that potential law students ought to know.
Let’s dig deeper into the piece….


Williams offers a nice description of what has changed in the span of perhaps just two short years:

Lawyers who entered the field as recently as a few years ago could reasonably expect a life of comfort, security and social esteem. Many are now faced with a different landscape. Firms shed more than 4,600 lawyers last year, according to a blog that tracks the legal industry, Law Shucks. Bonuses for those who survive are shriveling, and an increasing number of firms now compensate associates based on grades for performance — shades of law school — rather than automatically advancing them on the salary scale.

For those just starting out, it’s easy to think that the rules have changed six minutes into the first period.

Indeed. This is why we feel especially bad for current 3Ls, as well as 2009 graduates who are still looking for work (or deferred and waiting to start work). They made the decision to go to law school under a different set of assumptions. Anyone who enrolls in law school in fall 2010, in contrast, should be aware of the risks inherent in the proposition.
Some of the current difficulties are due to the economy. But, as the article suggests, some are tied to larger and possibly long-term changes in the legal profession:

The main reason for the squeeze is the Great Recession, which has cut deeply into the kinds of companies — in financial services, real estate, high tech — that are the wellsprings of fees for corporate lawyers. The client companies that survived are doing fewer deals, and driving harder bargains with their lawyers: many negotiate a flat fee for the job, meaning firms can no longer bill by the hour for every legal eagle on the case.

Even associates who find plenty to do worry that outstanding performance is no longer enough to protect them, said Daniel Lukasik, a Buffalo lawyer who runs an information and outreach Web site called Lawyers With Depression, adding that his traffic is up 25 percent since June, to about 25,000 visitors a month.

Sponsored

So it’s not just the economy, stupid. Even after the recession is over, other changes — such as a move away from the billable hour,a move away from lockstep and a rise in “merit-based” systems of compensation and promotion, and the rise of outsourcing — will make Biglaw less lucrative, cushy, and secure.
In addition to Lawshucks, quoted above, other friends of ATL make appearances in the NYT article:

A midlevel associate in the New York office of a white-shoe firm, who writes provocatively about law-firm life under the name Legal Tease on her blog, Sweet Hot Justice, described a big law firm as “an absolute torture shack.”

…. The pain of 26-year-olds earning six figures may not seem great in a country where unemployment hovers around 10 percent. But, Legal Tease argued, that six-figure salary looks a lot smaller when you divide it by the number of hours worked. “If you do the math, you’re making less than a baby sitter — not a nanny even, but an actual baby sitter in high school,” she insisted.

(Digression: Is that hyperbole? We saw some conversations on Facebook where our friends ran the numbers and concluded it had to be.)
The piece closes with some comments from yours truly:

It is harder to maintain [a] sense of esteem now that your contract work is being farmed out to low-cost lawyers in Bangalore, and your client who is splitting up with her spouse can handle it herself with a $31.99 do-it-yourself divorce kit from Office Depot, said David Lat, the managing editor of Above the Law, a well-read blog about the legal industry.

“There’s a different feeling in the air,” said Mr. Lat, a Yale Law-educated former associate at a major firm. And in some quarters, the sense of outrage is giving way to simple fatigue and resignation.

In 2008 when firms announced cuts in bonuses and office perks, “there was an outcry, a certain sense of entitlement,” he said. Lawyers, being lawyers, had fight. Now, less so.

“That sense of entitlement is so 2007,” he said. With 14,000 lawyer and legal staff jobs lost since the beginning of 2008, “to whine about how your firm no longer has chair massages on Friday seems a little petty.”

We’ve just given you excerpts. Read the whole piece, which is excellent and well worth your time, by clicking here.
UPDATE: As noted in the comments, the Times has advertised on ATL in the past. (Please treat this as a standing disclosure; we are not going to mention this historical fact every time we link to an NYT piece.)
No Longer Their Golden Ticket [The New York Times]

Sponsored

Topics