The American Lawyer just released its annual summer associate job survey. Back in the day, law students paid a lot of attention to how summers before them enjoyed their summer associate experience. Of course, back in the day the summer associate experience used to be a 12-week-long recruiting event. Now, it’s a 12 (or 10, […]
Self-awareness: it’s a really important character trait. As you go about your day, your life, and your life’s work, it’s important to have an understanding of who you are and how you are perceived. But what if your self-perception is grossly misaligned with objective reality? Well, then things could get tricky. You might make a […]
Law firms and legal departments are writing the future of the profession in separate rooms. What happens when they actually work together?
A Dealbreaker reader was out and about on the Upper West Side, and something caught his eye. He moved in for a closer look, snapped a photo, and sent it to Dealbreaker. Our colleague Bess Levin has been having a grand old time ever since. Me? I just want people to see it before they […]
Back in February of this year, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) announced a minor change to its recruiting guidelines. I was underwhelmed. New associates are graduating law school in a terrible job market, firms are sick of being forced to hire people two years before they know their staffing needs, and NALP is […]
I hope all of you had a fine long weekend. I also hope at least some of you have some skills at building infrastructure. But maybe you have some legal skills. If you do, the market for your talents is ever-so-slightly recovering. The latest jobs report shows that the American economy stinks as a whole, […]
Earlier this week, Conor Friedersdorf, writing for The Atlantic, poured a big bottle of haterade all over the legal profession. More specifically, he criticized the way “Ivy League” lawyers are recruited, and the “palpable sense of entitlement” they exhibit even when they don’t take Biglaw bucks and instead work for the government. Here’s the set […]
With the addition of Uncover’s technology, the litigation software is delivering rapid innovation.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a true contestant for the title of most depressing job offered to a law student. Sure, there have been a lot of jobs that offer $10 an hour, or even $0 an hour, for legal work. But at least those jobs were offering the opportunity to put long […]
It sounds like something firms would try to keep on the down low, through anonymous postings on Craigslist. But in the new economy, it’s apparently no big deal for law firms to ask career services offices to send over students who are so desperate they’re willing to work for free. The ABA Journal reports: Law […]
Late last night, we received a tip that has become all too common in the dog days of August. This tipster sent us this letter from the career services office at Georgetown Law: Haynes and Boone, LLP has just informed us that they will no longer have a summer program in their Washington, DC and […]
It’s been ten days since I last logged on to “the internet.” Ten days since I picked up a newspaper or let the dancing visions on MSNBC poison my mind. Ten days since I’ve tapped into the 140-character pulse of the world. While I’ve had my head in the sand, it appears that the mainstream […]
Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession.
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to [email protected]. Dear ATL, We’re at NYLS and I’m in an argument with my friends for resumes for interviews with law firms. I’m a member of MENSA and I think it’s okay to put “Member, MENSA” under my interests on my resume. Some of […]
As of this writing, Ethan Haines, writer of the UnemployedJD blog, has gone 32 hours without food. I think the kid might be joking, but Haines said he is going on a hunger strike — to convince law schools to be more transparent about the employment options of graduates, before the schools rope them into […]
Here’s a fun little story about the immense, door-opening possibilities you can enjoy once you have a J.D. and/or legal experience. From the ABA Journal: With 23 years of legal experience, Laurie-[E]llen Shumaker thought she would soon find another job when she was laid off in January 2009 from her position as a shopping center […]
Desperate times call for measures to take advantage of the desperate. Why pay California lawyers $10 an hour when they’re willing to work for free? And not just willing, but eager to provide their services on a volunteer basis. We wrote before about the public sector utilizing the unpaid legal workforce when the Marin County […]
Over the past few months, it’s seemed like the legal economy was picking back up. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, May saw job gains in the legal sector. June was not so kind. Am Law Daily reports that the legal economy isn’t out of the toilet just yet: After what initially seemed like […]