Legal employment shrunk a bit last month. Nevertheless, law schools continue to sprout like weeds, ensuring a rosy outlook for legal faculty and administrators. At least for now.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm
| Not seasonally adjusted | March | 2011 | 1,109,600 | |
| January | 2012 | 1,110,500 | ||
| February | 2012 | 1,111,500 | ||
| March | 2012 | 1,111,500 | 1,900 | |
| Seasonally adjusted | March | 2011 | 1,114,300 | |
| January | 2012 | 1,117,500 | ||
| February | 2012 | 1,117,700 | ||
| March | 2012 | 1,116,400 | 2,100 | |
| Change from Feb-12 to Mar-12 | (1,300) |
If you missed your chance to appear on CBS Evening News, here's another opportunity to hit the big time. A Japanese public TV network is doing a story on tentacle porn unemployed NYC lawyers. I realize that few people, myself included, are willing to lay waste to their "career" to speak to the media, but this is as obscure as you can get while still reaching a large audience.
From a Shit Law Jobs post:
Hello,
I'm a producer/director of a NY segment of a nightly TV newsmagazine program on NHK. NHK is Japan's public TV network. I'd like to produce an episode about student loan problems with a particular emphasis on the situation with law school graduates. Are you based in NYC? I'm looking for someone or an organization that is dedicated to help those graduates with student loans. I also would like to portray someone who holds a law degree but is not currently working as a lawyer. Please contact me at: miwamccormick [at] earthlink.net
Sincerely,
Miwa McCormick
NHK Cosmomedia America, Inc.
The title is the first thing that popped into my head; it may be a dig at Obama, or maybe just frustration.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has updated its industry projections through 2020. Let's cut to the chase and say that the outlook for lawyers sucks.
The table below is from a search I ran. The "Total Employment" is all lawyers and the "Legal Services" is, I believe, law firms. If I find differently then I'll update the post.
There will be an increase of 73,600 lawyer jobs between 2010 and 2020, during which time probably 450,000 people will graduate from law school and perhaps 200,000 will leave the "profession." The report doesn't touch on the quality of the jobs, treating a Cravath partnership-track position the same as doc review in a boiler room; however, I'm ASSuming the BLS took automation into account and its deleterious effect on low-end legal work.
You can see the data for yourself at http://data.bls.gov/oep/nioem/empiohm.jsp. Then, get your seat deposit in at Rutgers-Camden Rowan.
| Industry | 2010 | Projected 2020 | Employment change | ||||
| Title | Code | Employment | % | Employment | % | Total | % |
| Total employment | TE1000 | 728,200 | 100 | 801,800 | 100 | 73,600 | 10.1 |
| Legal services | 541100 | 368,200 | 50.6 | 389,800 | 48.6 | 21,600 | 5.9 |
This is one of those glass half full reports. The industry gained about 5,000 jobs year-over-year, a decent showing after a long period of contraction and slow growth. Of course, during this time nearly 50,000 people graduated and another 50,000 are due shortly. Things are so bad that even Columbia Law School is fudging its numbers. From the NY Post:
Some students reported having jobs paying $160,000 lined up. But legal-staffing firms reported placing recent grads of both NYU and Columbia in paralegal and support staff positions for as little as $35,000.
"I’ve never seen more attorneys applying for non-attorney jobs," said Tony Filson, president of Filcro Personnel, a staffing firm in New York.
"They’re all from top schools," said Maritza Murphy, a legal account manager at DeltaForce legal staffing. "Columbia, NYU, Fordham. A lot of small law firms are hiring them in paralegal jobs because they can get them at a lower cost."
TLS posters should read the last paragraph until it sinks in. C'mon, read it again. And, again. Got it? A CLS degree may not get you even a shitlaw associate position in the largest, possibly healthiest, legal market these days. That's pretty much everything anyone reading this blog needs to know. If Columbia and NYU have a cold, the NY-area toilets must have pneumonia.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm
| Not seasonally adjusted | February | 2011 | 1,107,600 | |
| December | 2011 | 1,118,800 | ||
| January | 2012 | 1,111,400 | ||
| February | 2012 | 1,113,000 | 5,400 | |
| Seasonally adjusted | February | 2011 | 1,114,700 | |
| December | 2011 | 1,115,600 | ||
| January | 2012 | 1,118,800 | ||
| February | 2012 | 1,119,600 | 4,900 | |
| Change from January 12-February 12 | 800 |
Will you look at that! Legal jobs increased by 1,000 in January 2012. Thanks to this performance, the industry employed 100 more individuals than January 2011. NALP is quite certain this is not a rounding error.
So, next time a bitter JDU loser tells you that law is dying and we're all doomed, insult their race/religion/school/manhood and then inform them: Nope, it's GROWING.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm
| Not seasonally adjusted | January | 2011 | 1,108,500 | |
| November | 2011 | 1,117,900 | ||
| December | 2011 | 1,119,200 | ||
| January | 2012 | 1,109,100 | 600 | |
| Seasonally adjusted | January | 2011 | 1,116,500 | |
| November | 2011 | 1,116,700 | ||
| December | 2011 | 1,115,600 | ||
| January | 2012 | 1,116,600 | 100 | |
| Change from December 11-January 12 | 1,000 |
I've posted very little, lately, but this article shook me out of my torpor. Surprisingly, it does not deal with law.
The article, How Much You Study In College Determines What You'll Get Paid For The Rest Of Your Life, cites a 2008 study alleging a strong correlation between studying time and future earnings. It ends with the advice, "It's proof that hard work, not IQ, is what really makes people successful." When you stop laughing, read on.
Speaking as someone who spent every spring break in the library, so as to knock off papers and free time for exams, I call BS. I also learned first-hand about group dynamics: In an eight-member group, three people will do all the work.
After graduating magna cum laude, including good grades in my major, business administration, I then scrambled for permanent, full-time work, finally finding some in July. Following a couple of shit jobs — if you ever work for a small company and see fifteen different initials in the files, it's a shit job — I departed for law school. My college GPA helped smooth the way. College so soured me on the payback for hard work that I didn't focus on my law school grades. Guess how that turned out?
Back in the mid-1990s, I briefly had a small web site for which I wrote an essay called Don't Work for Clowns. It's printed out somewhere and I'll post it when I find it. In the interim, here's some advice that is worth every penny you've paid for it.
I'm writing this from work on a Sunday. FML.
Calling the presTTTigious law school cartel out has now evolved from scamblogging into a 2nd Circuit judge speaking at a legal educators convention.
There's an interesting National Law Journal article, one of several I've read, on the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting. The conference focused on the sorry state of legal education. Given that the participants were mostly the ones responsible for the sorry state of legal education, albeit with lots of help from Uncle Sugar, the hand-wringing was about as contrived as the grieving at a North Korean dictator's funeral. At the end of the day, they said much and will accomplish about as little as OWS.
Enter Judge Cabranes. Cabranes is the stuff of TLS wet dreams, though they'd probably ban his ass posthaste if he ever showed up there. The judge has three issues with legal education: Cost, student debt, and irrelevant scholarship by the faculty. His proposed solution involves a two-year curriculum of core courses — Space Law is OUT — followed by a third year either apprenticing with practicing attorneys or working, for compensation, in a school clinic. Schools would lose out on the third year of tuition. Sounds promising, but if it stood a snowball's chance in hell of being taken seriously, the judge would find a horse's head in his bed. I have my own thoughts on legal reform that differ markedly from the judge's; however, he has to deal with the schools' output on a daily basis and is in a better position to speak than I am.
The main import from all this isn't that legal education sucks or that people are philosophizing about solutions. Instead, it's the level at which the discussion is occurring. Not too long ago, someone making these comments would have had to post them anonymously and accept being scorned as a bitter loser who didn't network hard enough, and he or she would mostly be preaching to the choir. Now, the comments are coming from the top of the "profession" and being delivered straight to the academy.
C'mon, Congress, it's time for the hammer.
