Lost Generation

Quote of the Day: Hey, At Least He’s at a ‘T14′ Law School

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Georgetown University Law Center (known for its great gym).

I feel very fortunate to have had an idea of what I wanted to do from such a young age, and even more fortunate that it involved graduate school. What can you do with a bachelor’s degree anymore? I’m hoping that the job market will pick up in the three years I spend at law school, because a lot of lawyers are getting laid off. The American Bar Association is even encouraging college students not to apply to law school, citing the bleak job market.

– Noah Rich, a Georgetown 1L who was interviewed by the New York Times as part of the newspaper’s survey of the class of 2011 at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

(It’s hard out there for a class of 2011 college graduate. More findings, and additional law-related tidbits, after the jump.)

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More Evidence That The Legal Job Market Is In Terrible Shape

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Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger. I bring tidings of woe not because I’m trying to rob you of your right to pursue a legal education; I’m trying to help you. Call me Elie Stormcrow.

Actually, today The Atlantic is the messenger reminding you of the serious financial peril involved in starting a legal career. The recession might be over but the recovery hasn’t happened for all. And we’re not just talking about the Occupy Wall Street people. No, no, things remain pretty bad for lawyers and bankers. Here’s the money quote from the Atlantic: “In 2011, finance, insurance, and law were the three primarily white-collar professions that managed to shed workers, even as the rest of the economy trudged forward through a slow recovery.”

Yeah folks, even in 2011, the legal economy was still shedding jobs. But it’s not like law schools were spitting out fewer graduates, so… you do the math.

Here, the Atlantic has put things in a fancy chart. Pictures people, it’ll be like an LSAT game: how many people made a terrible investment in higher education?

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The ABA Focuses on Losing the ‘Lost Generation,’ One Statistic at a Time

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Back in June, when we spoke about the latest job data from NALP, it became clear that the class of 2010 — my graduating class — had some of the worst employment outcomes of the last 20 years. We knew this because of the way NALP categorized its data, differentiating between jobs that require and don’t require bar passage, and between full-time and part-time jobs.

But apparently the American Bar Association isn’t interested in helping people understand these outcomes on a school-by-school basis. The ABA doesn’t want you to know how schools fared in finding full-time legal employment for graduates of the class of 2010.

That’s right, the same folks who claimed just two short months ago that “no one could be more focused on the future of our next generation of lawyers than the ABA,” will now be removing those helpful job characteristics from the 2011 Annual Questionnaire….

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Reminder: DOJ Honors Program Applications Are Due Soon

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Just a friendly reminder to our 3L and law clerk readers: if you’re interested in the Honors Program of the U.S. Department of Justice, you need to submit your application materials very soon — about a week from now. (And note that the Labor Day holiday falls during this period, which could affect your ability to obtain transcripts or contact references.)

As we previously mentioned, the Honors Program application deadline is SEPTEMBER 6, 2011. For complete application information and the full hiring timeline, see the DOJ website.

We wish you good luck — because you’ll definitely need it….

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The Incredible Shrinking DOJ Honors Program

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As far as we know, the hiring freeze at the U.S. Department of Justice is still on. This shouldn’t come as a shock, given all the recent political logjam concerning the debt ceiling and the federal budget.

When it comes to job opportunities at the Justice Department, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the DOJ Honors Program is still hiring — and is now accepting applications.

So consider this your friendly reminder from Above the Law, like the ones we’ve done in years past: if you want to apply to the Honors Program, accurately described as “the largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind,” then you need to get your materials in by SEPTEMBER 6, 2011. For complete application information and the full hiring timeline, see the DOJ website.

Now, the bad news (because there’s always bad news). It seems that the Honors Program might be extra-small this time around….

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Latest Job Data From NALP Confirm That Class of 2010 Is Lost

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“[T]he new NALP numbers confirm that the job market is terrible for young lawyers (aka the “lost generation”).” I wrote that last year about the class of 2009.

And last year things were way better than this year. This year’s NALP employment numbers are out, and they show that the class of 2010 had some of the worst employment outcomes of the last 20 years.

No wonder people are suing their law schools. Going to law school turned out to be a terrible decision for many of them….

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Just How Big Is The Lost Generation?

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It’s hard to put a number on just how many people are in the so-called “lost generation” of attorneys who had their careers ruined during the recession. We’ll probably never know how many people did not get jobs or had to take very bad jobs because of the weak economy in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

But one way of assessing the damage is to look at the number of positions that have been shed by Biglaw firms. That’s the perspective the National Law Journal 250 took this year. Based on their numbers, Biglaw has lost almost 10,000 lawyers since 2008.

So if you got laid off during the recession, you are certainly not alone…

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Character & Fitness Fail for Graduate With ‘No Plan’ To Pay Off His Debts

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Well, how much debt do you have?

Wow. Guy goes to law school, guy racks up a huge amount of debt, guy has no idea how he’ll pay off his debts. Sound familiar? Okay, here’s the twist: the guy failed the “character and fitness” component of the Ohio bar because he has no plan to pay off his loans.

What the hell kind of legal education system are we running where we charge people more than they can afford to get a legal education, and then prevent them from being lawyers because they can’t pay off their debts?

Because it’s not like Hassan Jonathan Griffin was in a particularly unique situation when he went before the Ohio bar. A year and a half ago, we wrote about a man who was dinged on his character and fitness review because he was $400,000 in debt. That’s an extraordinary case. Hassan Jonathan Griffin owes around $170,000. He has a part-time job as a public defender. He used to be a stockbroker. He’s got as much a chance of figuring out a way to pay off his loans as most people from the Lost Generation.

If Griffin can’t pass C&F, Ohio might as well say that half of the recent graduates in the state don’t have the “character and fitness” to be a lawyer…

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Deferral Stipend Judgment Is a Moral Victory for Two Former Heller Ehrman Associates

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Way back in 2008, back when people were wondering just how bad the recession was going to be for Biglaw, Heller Ehrman collapsed. When the firm dissolved, there was a lot of fear that it would be the first of many to fold.

While a few other firms also dissolved during the recession, we didn’t have an epidemic of dissolution across Biglaw. At the end of the day, it looks like only the firms under horrendous management paid the ultimate price.

Of course, many of the people who managed these firms into the ground landed on their feet and found new, high-paying legal jobs. Many of the associates and staff didn’t fare as well. Try getting a job in this economy when you are an associate with no experience who has already been laid off. In the immortal words of Akin Gump partner Steven Pesner, “the job market is not so good right now, in case you did not know.”

Given all that these people have been through, it’s nice to be able to report on a victory for two would-be Heller associates. Heller pushed back their start date and offered them a deferral stipend. Then the firm folded, and Heller never paid out that stipend.

Now, two years later, a California court has ruled that these two members of the Lost Generation should have been given priority when Heller came apart…

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Introduction to the Legal Recovery (We Hope)

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Ed. Note: Will the Lost Generation ever find its way back into Biglaw? If recent law school graduates can’t find a Biglaw job straight out of school, or if they were laid off from their initial Biglaw job, the chances of them having a Biglaw career seem unlikely.

But not impossible. This new column is written by a member of the Lost Generation who initially was thrown off of the Biglaw bandwagon but was able to get back on, and is now trying to hang on to his Biglaw second chance.

The first thing many of you must wonder when some new writer infiltrates your daily ATL intake is, “Who the hell is this girl or guy?” Thus, before I begin telling you how it is in my world, let me tell you who I am.

I am T-Fifty. I go by that name because I have learned the importance of law school rankings in the legal industry. I graduated from a T50 law school, and that ranking has now consumed my identity in the legal world. I could tell you all the things I’ve told Mark Zuckerberg and his business partners, but you wouldn’t care. Not when I’ve got T-Fifty emblazoned on my face. It is the way of things.

My journey begins the summer prior to my graduation from my T50 law school. I was no-offered by my Biglaw summer employer, and I soon learned that I was part of the Lost Generation, doomed to be excluded from Biglaw and the accompanying paychecks forever. I will admit that I was distraught. I faced a mountain of debt that I had no chance of paying off….

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