Lawyers, journalists, investment bankers — they are liabilities, not leaders, in the zombie-infested world….
In the zombie apocalypse, your J.D. is worthless — which is actually not so different from the real world of recent years.
– Torie Bosch, in a thought-provoking Slate article entitled First, Eat All the Lawyers, arguing that the boom in zombie-related entertainment reflects, and is fueled by, the economic anxieties of white-collar workers.
According to the Department of Labor, 14 million people in our country are unemployed. And with a surplus of lawyers that reaches into the thousands in almost every state, unemployment is a serious problem for the legal profession.
Unfortunately, we all know that Biglaw firms — and surely other firms, as well — are avoiding these attorneys like the plague. We spoke about this industry-wide issue back in late 2009, noting that Biglaw firms weren’t exactly keen on hiring associates that had previously been laid off. In fact, one recruiter we spoke with told us that approximately 80 percent of employers specifically requested résumés from attorneys who are still employed.
Facing these seemingly insurmountable odds, what’s an unemployed attorney to do? As it turns out, President Obama wants to lend a hand, but only if he can get Congress to pass this jobs bill….
Continue reading “Can Obama’s Jobs Bill Help Laid Off and Unemployed Attorneys?”
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….
Continue reading “The ABA Focuses on Losing the ‘Lost Generation,’ One Statistic at a Time”
* Hey, Preet Bharara, even Lady Gaga can read your poker face when you’re going all in on an allegation of Full Tilt Ponzi. Maybe Lederer and Ferguson will finally fold. [Wall Street Journal]
* You know what this country really needs? More doctors who don’t believe in science. Another stem cell research case is going up to the D.C. Circuit. [Bloomberg]
* The last 9/11 wrongful death suit has been settled. Lessons learned: airport screeners might not know what Mace is, but they sure can lift and separate your balls. [New York Times]
* Cooley Law held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus. We’re good at surviving natural disasters, but a tsunami of unemployed lawyers might break this profession. [Miami Herald]
* A group of drag queens in Florida got busted for thieving the essentials — bras, boas, and butt pads. As RuPaul would say, you better work. Or steal. You know, whatever. [New York Daily News]
* Guys in my high school middle school used to have the ACLU file lawsuits over breathalyzer tests all the time. It was no big deal. [MSNBC]
Wesley Snipes
* I thought the rule for how to cite a blog in your brief was “don’t,” but I have less use for a Bluebook than a homeless orphan (I hear kindling is hard to come by on the streets). [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* More analysis on the mean mommy lawsuit reminds me of how much better things would be if somebody — be it a parent or a bully — had slapped these kids upside their fat heads during crucial developmental years. [Healthland / TIME]
* Maybe if more lawyers knew some basic principles of digital masking, they wouldn’t be so terrified when it comes to tipping ATL about the stuff going down at their firms. Either that, or people would make even more fun of me. [An Associate's Mind]
* Culinary school graduates are also unhappy with the employment prospects available to them after investing in additional education. Let me try this maxim out and you tell me what you think: if the education has neither “computer,” nor “science,” nor “military” in the title, you are being charged way too much. [Eater]
* Don’t you love how lawyers can turn any massive failure into a business opportunity? Lawyers are like the bacteria in charge of decomposition in the crisis ecosystem. [Law and More]
* In the game of tax conviction appeals, Wesley Snipes came up a little bit short. Kind of like the time he slid into second base too early and stopped before the bag. (New rule: all Wesley Snipes tax references must be accompanied by a Wesley Snipes movie reference.) [TaxProf Blog]
Luz Herrera
The economy had to tank and a lot of people had to become unemployed for law schools to ask: ‘How can we help people hang out their shingle?’
– Luz Herrera, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, commenting on the need for law schools to establish solo practice incubators. In 2007, CUNY School of Law was the first school to introduce such an innovative program for its graduates.
There are 64 open jobs in occupational therapy for every 100 working in the field, the [SimplyHired.com] site’s data show. Yet online job listings for these positions get 50 times fewer clicks than the hardest-to-place industry — the legal field. Meanwhile, unemployed lawyers now find themselves in the country’s most cutthroat race for a job, with less than one opening for every 100 working attorneys.
— from a recent Wall Street Journal article, Where the Jobs Are.
At number nine in the latest U.S. News law school rankings, it comes as a surprise that the University of Virginia School of Law hasn’t been doing so hot this year in terms of finding jobs for its graduates.
In March, we reported that UVA Law students donned venomous t-shirts in protest during an admitted students’ weekend. In April, we saw the artistic and architectural work of yet another unemployed UVA Law student.
And now, almost three months after graduation, we have some more bad news from Charlottesville, thanks to the Virginia Law Weekly. Someone from UVA Law Career Services forgot how to blind carbon copy, and we now have an idea as to many Class of 2011 graduates are unemployed.
Unfortunately, not everyone can be HARVARD LAW SECURE….
Continue reading “UVA Law’s Employment Numbers Are Less Than Impressive”
“[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….
Continue reading “Latest Job Data From NALP Confirm That Class of 2010 Is Lost”
Try telling a recent college grad to think critically before applying to law school. Just try to do it. It won’t be long before the young person you are trying to help gets inappropriately angry and shouts, “Well what AM I supposed to do, you fat f**k? Seriously oh wise internet blogger, what the hell am I supposed to do, work at Barnes & Noble? Oh wait, they’re not hiring, a$$hole.”
Yeah, recent college grads tend to act like going to law school (or some other professional school or post-graduate degree program) is their only option in a market that doesn’t have enough jobs. Citing the results of a recent poll taken by Twentysomething Inc., Time reports that 85% of 2011 college graduates are expected to move back in with their parents. (Gavel bang: BL1Y.)
Honestly guys, this is how riots start. Unemployed adults living in forced infancy without enough money to start a family of their own. That’s the tinder that has brought down pretty much every society ever.
The report reiterates what we already know: people are turning to professional school to wait out this terrible job market.
In the face of these numbers… well, I still think that people going to law school simply in response to a difficult job market are making a terrible and ruinous choice. Here’s why….
Continue reading “So This Is Why People Keep Applying To Law School”
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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