August 2014

Treading water. August had a decent gain but year-over-year remains meh, as does employment as a whole. NY Times had an article on sluggish job growth and the three million people who've dropped out of the labor force.

Health care has been a bright spot. Ever wonder why there's no Nursing School Lemmings blog?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	August	2013	1,136,500
	June	2014	1,145,400
	July	2014	1,146,000
	August	2014	1,141,500	5,000
Seasonally adjusted	August	2013	1,136,100
	June	2014	1,137,000
	July	2014	1,136,600
	August	2014	1,139,900	3,800
Change from Jul-14 to Aug-14				3,300

July 2014

I'm just going through the motions at this point. July 2014 was flat. Year-over-year was modest, nowhere near enough to absorb recent graduates. We'll see what happens in the fall, though I'll go out on a limb and predict things will suck for most newly-minted lawyers.

I'd hoped toilet law schools would start to fail and fall like dominos as students fled, but I'm increasingly convinced there is a baseline supply of individuals like this to fill seats. All the schools need to do is get their expenses in line with the new-normal revenue stream — they're lopping faculty and staff as I type this — and they can scam provide quality, ABA-endorsed legal educations forever.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	July	2013	1,143,300
	May	2014	1,131,700
	June	2014	1,145,600
	July	2014	1,147,100	3,800
Seasonally adjusted	July	2013	1,132,000
	May	2014	1,135,200
	June	2014	1,136,100
	July	2014	1,135,900	3,900
Change from Jun-14 to Jul-14				-200

Thank you, Nando

As both a fan of TTR almost from inception and someone who also faces health challenges — it's amazing how much your life can change in an instant — I'd like to wish you happy trails. Thank you for your monumental contribution to scamblogging, your perseverance, and your willingness to slough off the endless abuse from defenders of the legal academy and "profession."

June 2014

A gain of 5,000+ year-over-year isn't too shabby, just nowhere near enough to absorb recent graduates. Meanwhile, law school applications are headed the opposite direction. That piece quotes heavily from a subscription-required National Law Journal article so it's context-free, but the delusion is palpable. One professor states, "Law school just isn't the path into the middle class that it once was." Translating, the professor means that once-upon-a-time — the ship had sailed by the mid-80s — most of a graduating class could expect a good outcome. Today, only a small handful of "winners" can.

To illustrate the concept, a mouse-click over the ABA Journal has an article on a 101-year-old lawyer. They also interviewed his 72-year-old lawyer son.

Meanwhile, in Texas, an unaccredited new law school is raking them in with $14K-year tuition. While I'd like to wish the students luck and success, it appears many of them are URMs and non-trads whose career will be over as soon as it starts.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	June	2013	1,140,600
	April	2014	1,132,200
	May	2014	1,131,500
	June	2014	1,145,700	5,100
Seasonally adjusted	June	2013	1,131,000
	April	2014	1,136,300
	May	2014	1,135,200
	June	2014	1,136,400	5,400
Change from May-14 to Jun-14				1,200

May 2014

A JD Junkyard poster dredged up old blogs, one circa 2004. Law sucks. Law has always sucked. Law will always suck, courtesy of the ABA and the legal academy.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	May	2013	1,131,300
	March	2014	1,134,400
	April	2014	1,131,800
	May	2014	1,132,100	800
Seasonally adjusted	May	2013	1,133,800
	March	2014	1,137,800
	April	2014	1,135,700
	May	2014	1,135,000	1,200
Change from Apr-14 to May-14				-700

April 2014

I'm too lazy to do more than state the obvious: growth is negligible. Head over to Third Tier Reality to read about the ensuing carnage.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	April	2013	1,132,000
	February	2014	1,129,600
	March	2014	1,134,300
	April	2014	1,132,600	600
Seasonally adjusted	April	2013	1,135,700
	February	2014	1,136,400
	March	2014	1,137,600
	April	2014	1,136,400	700
Change from Mar-14 to Apr-14				-1,200

March 2014

"One thousand jobs"
[Thunder crash!]
"Two thousand jobs"
[Mail slot slowly opens]
"Three thousand jobs"
[Loan statement drops on floor]
"Four thousand jobs"
[Another thunder crash]
"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	March	2013	1,129,000
	January	2014	1,129,200
	February	2014	1,129,300
	March	2014	1,133,000	4,000
Seasonally adjusted	March	2013	1,133,400
	January	2014	1,136,700
	February	2014	1,136,700
	March	2014	1,137,400	4,000
Change from Feb-14 to Mar-14				700